Forza Horizon 5: Standard Edition For Xbox Series X & Xbox One

Forza Horizon 5: Standard Edition For Xbox Series X & Xbox One

As Forza Horizon 5 crosses the finish line, the bar for open-world racing has again been raised in so many different ways. A map of Mexico that’s bigger, higher, and wildly more varied than any Horizon game yet. A fresh change to the way the Horizon Festival itself is gradually constructed, which results in more one-off events deliberately designed to showcase Horizon 5 at its very best. Improved tools that allow us to build completely custom events that can be more or less indistinguishable from those crafted by the developers themselves.

An enormous visual upgrade, especially to lighting, tyre smoke, and dust effects. Hundreds and hundreds of new custom parts, rims, and performance mods, and cars with more character than ever. Drastic sound improvements, better handling, more granular preferences and options, more online activities. It really is incredible across the board.

To understand just how big Forza Horizon 5 is, we have to briefly look back at Forza Horizon 4, which truly ballooned into an absolute colossus of a racing game back in 2018. Playground Games had taken the impeccable open-world racing of all the Horizon games to date, then stuffed in simulated seasons, a shared-world multiplayer overhaul, and a shift in how the team told their mini automotive stories. But that was day one; Playground then spent another three years cramming in even more things to do. The Festival Playlist, where new activities were available every week. The Eliminator, Horizon’s very clever and effective take on bringing the battle royale format to a racing game. The Super7, where we could participate in custom-built racing, driving, and stunt-based challenges made by others, plus create and share our own.

The breadth of Playground’s wonderfully diverse map of Mexico is exceptional, and it comes as an extremely exotic and interesting array of environments to get lost in after three years in Horizon 4’s beautiful but broadly more-uniform Britain. Horizon 5’s tapestry of colourful locations and backdrops more closely resembles Horizon 3, but it feels noticeably more extensive than even Playground’s remarkable 2016 riff on Australia.
There’s Baja, where the sun-baked tarmac hugs the coast as the parched, sandy desert blends into the beach, and deep jungle, where muddy tracks criss-cross through ancient temples, abandoned airstrips, and thickets. There’s the charmingly colourful city of Guanajuato and its maze-like network of cobblestone streets and tunnels, contrasted with a sleepy coastal town flanked by the ocean on one side and mangroves on the other. There’s rolling green farmland draped in crops and windswept grass, and also a picturesque gorge that looks like it’s been plucked from a Western movie. There’s the semi-arid desert of the map’s interior, filled with towering cacti and stubborn shrubs, and the high and rocky volcanic peak of Gran Caldera. There’s even a giant stadium for soccer shenanigans.