Forza Horizon 4

Forza Horizon 4 takes everything that made Forza Horizon 3 one of the best racing games in its category, and adds new ingredients to create a title that you will never want to let go of. The impressive quality of the visuals and sound, the wide variety of vehicles on offer and the long, fully customizable career mode, which made the saga of the saga, are on the menu. What is new here is the way that Forza Horizon 4 effortlessly manages to convince us to relaunch it, through regular rewards and its new season system, which constantly renews challenges.

Each week, the game season changes and comes with a new landscape, as well as challenges specific to each of them. Every day, the game also delivers even more new Forzathon challenges to complete. And every hour, a new online event is introduced, to be completed with 11 other pilots who share the same goal as you: victory!

To all this is added the well-known content of the Horizon franchise: dozens and dozens of races and activities spread across several disciplines. Traditional race, rally, drift, drag, creation of your own events ... In short, the total! With its countless cars, elements of customization and tasks to finalize, Forza Horizon 4 wants to prove to us that it has all the qualities to stay in the landscape for a good and long time.

Midland madness

All this is possible thanks to the new default nature of Forza Horizon 4 , which is that of a shared and connected open world racing game, in which the other vehicles encountered are controlled mainly by real players. It's always about competing against AI - unless you decide to race with or against friends - but you'll also be forced to share this open world with players who go about their business.

Forza Horizon 4 is in a way nothing more than a more intimate The Crew , with the difference that online gaming is not mandatory here. You can indeed play the game entirely in offline mode if you wish. And being forced to play in offline mode, for whatever reason, is not a problem either, since the transition from connected mode to offline mode is done seamlessly, in the background, which allows you to continue playing without being interrupted. This has happened to me sometimes, and my progress has never been lost.

Even as an anti-social person and allergic to multiplayer, I have found no reason to leave the online environment. Pause the game, rewind ... Everything works the same way, whether you are connected or not. Furthermore, whether in free exploration mode or during Forzathon events, vehicles driven by other players cannot be struck. Nothing can therefore interrupt your walks or your stunts, unless you decide to join a group of players, in which case the collision system will reactivate.

Regarding live Forzathon events, it is interesting to participate because completing them allows you to recover a special currency, different from that obtained during normal races. These Forzathon points can be exchanged in a dedicated shop, for rare vehicles and other personalization items such as emotes - including somewhat dated "memes" dating from the Vine era. This system recalls the redemption of Miles in GT Sport . Everything seems to be unlockable at random, simply by leveling up. But even if I'm not a fan of this slot machine pricing system, it's important to note that Forza Horizon 4 does not include any microtransactions. You don't have to spend real dollars to upgrade all your favorite vehicles!

You may be more receptive than me to the wide variety of emotes, clothes for your avatars and horns all more unusual than the others, to unlock. Personally, having dressed in the same jeans and hoodie for ten years, this whole cosmetic aspect has gone over my head a little. I must say that admit that the victory dances, escaped from GTA Online , are cute to watch.

Winter is coming

The introduction of Forza Horizon 4 , lasting 4 to 5 hours, offers a very complete overview of the four seasons. But once you have passed this prologue, the seasons will change only once a week (whether you are online or not). During my test, I mainly drove in the fall, and honestly, I think this is the season I prefer. This is accompanied by so many small details, the varied colors of the trees and their dead leaves, with puddles visible on the roadside and which refuse to evaporate because of the ambient freshness. Winter is an equally excellent season. If you've played the Forza Horizon 3 Blizzard Mountain expansion, you already know what to expect. The environments do not just become white: the landscape, as a whole, adopts a new identity.

Not living in the UK, hard for me to judge the great attention to detail by the developers of Playground Games, but overall, the Britain of Forza Horizon 4 is just breathtaking. From picturesque villages to quiet farms, through winding country roads and bounded by decrepit stone walls, chirping streams, dense forests, immense beaches, rocky mountains, castles and other structures hundreds of years old. 'years ... The variety is clearly there. Add to that hinds, rabbits, hens and agile sheep who roam freely in the fields, and you get a British decor that vibrates with life.

Everything is beautiful and I loved exploring this huge world. On Xbox One X, I opted for the default graphics option (4k, HDR, 30 fps) because I have so far enjoyed playing Forza Horizon at 30 frames per second. But there is also a performance mode (60 fps, 1080p, HDR). Dawn and dusk are the most impressive times of day for the light effects in Forza Horizon 4 . It is therefore logically during these times of the day that I enjoyed driving the most. The changes of scenery are not as striking as in the Australia of Forza Horizon 3 , with arid deserts and tropical forests, but a regular variation of altitude makes forget this small defect which is not one. The roads, with many differences in level, offer a much more interesting driving experience. The map is also made up of many more different types of road, be it wide highways, cramped alleys, or crossroads with a strange design, surely built several well thought out. This is probably the place where I most enjoyed driving.

English paradise

Forza Horizon 4 offers the most complete list of vehicles in the franchise, but also the most eclectic. It ranges from the Peel P50 mini car to the Mercedes Unimog all-terrain truck. A fun machine to drive, but so huge that the camera sometimes has trouble following it, especially when you pass under a structure. As a fan of big mechanics, I especially appreciated the emphasis on English racing cars, hidden in traditional barns. British car culture is generally well represented. The Mitsibushi brand is however no longer in the game, like Toyota / Lexus. The game still includes 450 cars, distributed among 100 manufacturers. So there is always something to vary the pleasures.

For those who like to personalize their vehicles, the modified cars and other unique accessories are once again gathered in a separate category. New suspensions made for drifting Forza Motosport 7 have also been added, as well as new tuning options or even “drag” tires. It is now even possible to change the track width of some cars, something I tested on older models.

Special events are also back and are among the best in the series. The one dedicated to Halo is particularly likely to make people happy. I personally loved the mission against the Delta bomber, a huge, fast and breathtaking machine, especially when it is flying low. The collectors' challenges have been replaced by the Horizon Story mode which uses the same construction but with a different context. One of the scenarios makes us play a stuntman, while another places us alongside a YouTuber who lists all of his favorite racing games. This latest story, which openly pays homage to Ridge Racer , Test Drive , or Smuggler's Run , offers a classy and unexpected nod to the friendly racing games that inspired the Forza Horizon saga.

I must say that I admit that I miss the Collector Challenges a little bit. I loved racing at the wheel of a random racing car (while completing the personalized challenges of my friends). Blueprint mode is back, however, and it now allows you to create your own races during the season or time of day of your choice. It's a simple way to taste the seasons, without having to wait for them to arrive - sometimes take several weeks. Note that it is possible to access the Blueprint mode directly from the Pause menu. Convenient to launch a personalized race on the fly.

The Groove Music service having been stopped by Microsoft, it is no longer possible, as in Forza Horizon 3 , to listen to the music hosted in its OneDrive storage space. The standalone app still works, but it's not the same experience. That said the only criticism I have of the audio part. The teams at Playground Games have once again outdone themselves, whether it's the croak of the crow at the first glow of a winter morning, or the roar of the anti-delay system of a Ford Escort Cosworth .

Forza Horizon 4 rests the foundations on an ultra tested and perfected game structure over the years, which makes the scalable and realistic driving system its flagship. Driving, in every chapter of the series, is always a great pleasure, as well as immensely fun. Each type of terrain, asphalt and condition resting under the wheels of the most beautiful cars on Earth (which are more than 450 at launch) always responds to the laws of motoring: Forza, from this point of view, is a certainty and Horizon 4 is not is certainly an exception.

Over the years, counting the expansions, the Xbox-exclusive English-plate festival has traveled to Colorado, darted from the south of France to the Amalfi Coast and surfed in wild Australia, giving itself to the rally, the snowy, stormy races and even the reckless ones of the Hot Wheels: in all its forms, Forza Horizon has always shown that it knows exactly what it means to drive without ever putting aside the simulation pin of its older brother, Forza Motorsport, applying it to open dream worlds, in which it almost feels powerless in the face of the quantity and quality of the activities to be carried out.

To open the doors of total and total connectivity of this new chapter, the developers decided to play at home, creating a lively, pulsating and varied Great Britain, which adapts perfectly to the most important feature of this fourth chapter: the alternation of the four seasons. Forza Horizon 4 is the richest and most complete setting in the series, with scenarios ranging from snow-capped mountains to green and flowery plains, passing through city junctions and reaching the shores bathed by the sea.

And the beauty is that there is not a single place on the map that is not exploited to give life to the events of the game, which are divided into 25 different "campaigns" for the types of performances and objectives to be achieved: from cross country on board of a Jeep Trailcat drifting with a Nissan Skyline, from clandestine races armed with BMW M2 to stuntman missions aboard a Lamborghini Huracán, the players of Forza Horizon 4 are immediately flooded by a disproportionate number of races that can be faced in the order that it is preferred to gain influence points, level up and unlock new festival events.

The fantastic thing, however, is that once the introductory stages of each season are completed, which accompany the pilots by hand making them taste all that the game has to offer, the campaign continues synchronizing the season with the servers, which changes every week with new themed and timed challenges and missions. This choice, accompanied by the possibility of communicating and competing with the 72 players on the map at any time, gave the game a lot of breath and variety, which is in no way static and, in fact, is always capable of enriching itself and show a new face day by day.

Just think of the fact that, wanting to replay the same events to establish a different record after a week, the feeling and handling of the cars changes drastically and it is necessary to adapt to the proposed conditions, possibly changing the set-up or purchasing other vehicles. And the developers have been very good at underlining it from the very beginning of the game, showing the difference in approach that must exist between one season and another by pushing to play the same event after the first change.

This is one of the fresh ideas with which Playground Games is trying to inherit its all-round successful predecessor. Because he presented properly and almost perfected the Horizon formula . Forza Horizon 4 comes prepared so that signs of wear do not spoil the fun: In the new part you can expect a beautiful Great Britain, the largest fleet with 460 cars to release so far and a shared world that brings multiplayer to life.

I live here now

Apparently the last festival in Australia was so well received that the organizers were delirious. In the UK they have now got one thing that never ends and becomes a new home for the drivers. Sounds like the right place for us!

Before we can be accepted into the official racing team of the Horizon Festival, we have to prove ourselves for a year. In this introductory section, which lasts around five hours, we drive our first races and get to know the impressive variety of events: off-road, sprint, circuit, road racing, cross-country or even events in which we as stunt drivers drive a Bugatti through a windmill and into the depths jump - spectacular!

At the beginning we are given suitable vehicles for the different race types, such as a Subaru Impreza for off-road slopes, but later we can also use any other car and hop with a Koenigsegg over gravel roads. We find that very pleasant because the game never forces us to a certain car, annoying vehicle changes are eliminated . Also practical: We can have every car delivered to us free of charge from our garage while driving freely.

The driving behavior of Forza Horizon 4 feels demanding arcaded again. The vehicles have weight and if we turn off all driving aids, we often lose grip when accelerating too hard. Otherwise, even PS monsters control themselves relatively tame compared to a pure racing simulation. But that does not mean that all cars drive the same way, on the contrary: they control themselves in a pleasantly varied manner , even modern sports cars from Lamborghini, Porsche and Ferrari feel different when they are handled.

Crash course seasons

If we have collected enough influence points in the introductory section, we will switch to the next season. Winter in particular has a clear impact on handling due to its snow-covered roads, but in autumn we often slip through the leaves and puddles over the course. Spring also surprises us from time to time with rain, in summer the best conditions prevail.

The seasons also provide a visual change : exploring the snow-covered Edinburgh with classical music is almost like Christmas. Winter is our clear favorite, it stands out the most from all seasons - spring to autumn feel quite similar - and even changes the map in small parts: Derwent Water, the big lake in the west of the game world, freezes in the cold Temperatures increase completely - and are therefore passable.

Speaking of the change of seasons: only in the introduction you switch manually to spring, summer, autumn and winter, after that the servers control it . One season lasts for a week, every Thursday the next. Here the developers follow the service game concept: Every season brings temporary events that we can only complete during this time.

Incidentally, we can adjust many events using the so-called blueprints and also set the season. For example, we also run races in winter in summer, but the open world doesn't change that. However, at least in offline mode, we would have liked to be able to choose the seasons freely .

Hello friends!

There are some advantages to playing online. For one, there are hourly forzathon events . Here we team up with the other players in the session and perform tasks together, such as accumulating a certain number of points in a drift zone or breaking the speed limit for speed cameras. As a reward, we get Forzathon points, which we invest in cars, items and wheelspins in a separate shop.

We can also start many of the normal races with or against other players. Or we compete against so-called rivals in time races. Or we race for flags in Capture the Flag. Or we ram cars of the opposing team as infected. The packed multiplayer is a lot of fun, moreover we always decide for ourselves whether we want to take part in proposed events or prefer to have our rest.

Take that, stone wall!

Forza Horizon 4 also offers a varied and beautiful game world . In particular, the light effects and reflections on cars and puddles cause astonishment, day and night changes and weather effects contribute immensely to the atmosphere.

Some areas are even based on real places in Great Britain. We drive along country roads past meadows where sheep graze, slide across a beach towards the lighthouse, drift up a mountain via serpentines and explore the Scottish capital Edinburgh with all its quaint houses. Small but important improvement: We can now simply throw stone walls and thin trees over the pile , in the predecessor they were insurmountable obstacles.

Whether you like the game world in Forza Horizon 4 better than in Forza Horizon 3 depends on your taste. Australia feels more exotic and more varied overall, but Great Britain with its small villages and rural parts looks more idyllic. On top of that, the visual alternation in Forza Horizon 4 arises primarily over the seasons.

The game world is roughly the same size as in the predecessor. It takes a few minutes to get from one end of the map to the other. If we are in a hurry, we take a quick trip , but this time it is much more expensive. Not because of the trip itself - it still costs 10,000 credits at the beginning and becomes cheaper in the game world with every destroyed fast travel board - but because of the fast travel destinations.

In Forza Horizon 3, the festival has gradually expanded and created new festival locations that we were able to travel to quickly. In the new part there is only one. We also buy other bases in which we buy, tune and upgrade cars, in the form of houses and castles . Favorable costs cost around 100,000 credits, for the most expensive properties we put 15 million on the table. We also get a few items for the purchase, but the real estate market did not convince us very much.

Are you in a good mood?

By default, the races take place against drivatars, which we divide into eight different levels of difficulty. However, the AI fluctuates depending on the type of race, some races we won with the same level with ease, in others the opponents drove out of reach. We particularly like that the performance points of the opposing vehicles automatically adapt to our car , whether chugging cucumber or rocket.

But Forza Horizon 4 is all about one thing: good mood! That's why it hardly matters at the Horizon Festival whether we win a race or just cross the finish line in fourth. If we just get a few influence points and fewer credits, what's the point? We just unlocked a show race against a huge hovercraft! But that doesn't float around in the water, but slides down a mountain next to our jeep, flies over a hill, slips under a bridge and then drifts across the meadow while we jump over it in slow motion.

Yes, the show races are also highlights in Forza Horizon 4. All the more stupid that there are only five and one of them was even taken over one to one from the introductory race. If you hear one of the various radio stations before such races, the moderators chat about the news from the Horizon Festival , which fits perfectly with the festival mood.

If the hip sayings get on your nerves at some point, we recommend the classic station Timeless FM. Its moderator Dan Thompson detests everything that is loud, fast and dangerous and, like in Forza Horizon 3, makes a wonderful contrast to the crazy festival mood.

What's next?

Boredom? We don't know that word at the Horizon Festival. After just a few hours, our map is peppered with racing events, drift sections, danger signs for long jumps, influence boards and barn finds. The barn finds work like in the predecessor: A rough circle tells us where to look, then we optionally send our drone off, mark the barn and then drive to it to unlock a chic classic car.

In addition to the collectibles, normal races also offer enough food. In each of the racing series we collect points and move up in rank, with each level we unlock new races. At the same time, leveling up spits out rewards, such as a car, a few credits, or a wheelspin that drops a random item, including many cosmetic items such as horns or clothing.

We now dress our driver with a shirt, cap, glasses and accessories, among other things, and in the end give him gestures for victories and general poses. These are nice gimmicks, but we were often annoyed when we only had to be satisfied with old glasses instead of a legendary car or big cash prizes.

This is a PC version!

We come to perhaps the biggest PC problem child of the Horizon series: technology. Forza Horizon 3 received a dream rating of 92 from us, but at the same time also five points devaluation due to technical problems . The main criticisms were frame rate drops and a lack of PC optimization.

Forza Horizon 4, like its predecessor, has become a real fun grenade. The seasons, the new game world and the revised multiplayer bring a breath of fresh air to a well-known formula. If you played Forza Horizon 3 intensively, you won't experience any big surprises, since the developers have largely adopted the gameplay. But that's just a small damper for an all-round successful arcade racer .

Great Britain in Forzy Horizon 4 is so nice and atmospheric that I felt guilty, involuntarily demolishing various walls or road signs by car. It is thanks to the wonderful landscapes that you get the impression that it is a production with a zen element, offering such calm and relaxing gameplay while driving ahead - of course, in addition to racing competition and many breathtaking moments. Forza Horizon 4 remains the perfect game model, successfully combining the exploration of the open world, collecting hundreds of cars, the excitement of fighting for the first position and various ways of having fun together on the web. If this is your first contact with the Horizon series - this title undoubtedly deserves to be smoked!

However, it is very important how familiar we are with this racing brand. In the fourth part, unfortunately, it is already clear that this is really a new map for the "three" in the colors of the four seasons. The number of copy-paste elements turns out to be huge, and only a small British drizzle has fallen from the big cloud of announced new products. The possibility of buying houses or performing various professions is disappointing - basically these are already known activities, but under a different name. Forza Horizon adopted the habit of reluctant change after the Motorsport cycle . This is a great game, but not a satisfying sequel.

A month with four seasons

We also feel the British atmosphere of the new Fora while indulging in subsequent activities that slowly appear on the Horizon festival map with truly English phlegm. We basically have to go through the prologue twice - once in the fast racing known from the demo version for four seasons, and then again, but laboriously collecting the necessary impact points - which, together with exploring the new map, can take hours. Even a little noticeable monotony can be felt and raises the question of whether this is all that Forza Horizon 4 has to offer, but fortunately after passing the whole year, the game finally opens to us in all its glory.

As the new season begins, new competitions begin and new game modes become available, in the style of 1 mile drag races, drift and online Forzathon events and other variants of online fun. Some of them are only available seasonally and we will finish them only during the current season. In general, however, there is no reason to hurry, because each such season lasts a week of real time, but on the other hand - if someone does not like someone, say, winter locations, - wanting or not wanting - will be "condemned" to them for these few days . The mechanics change radically, because first (in the prologue) we decide on the speed of the arrival of the next season of the year, and then it is already imposed on us. However, this is the price for a "living" world full of other players, because the "always online" mode has become the default in this installment .

Horizon Life

At first glance, the Horizon Life mode is not much different from the Horizon Solo option. The gameplay is as comfortable as it is alone and there is no group of trolls spoiling other fun. With around 30 players on the server, a car with an unknown nickname will occasionally flash somewhere, which in the near distance will change into a ghost to pass without a crash. All activities on the map have been enriched by the possibility of including them in cooperation against a group of SI cars or only in PvP mode , where each vehicle is a different player. We can also quickly invite people to join us in a convoy, and a large group will be useful even during Forzathon network events.

In addition to daily and weekly challenges, there was something like a public event from MMOs. When a huge Forzathon blimp appears on the map, it means that a series of challenges will begin in a moment, divided into several rounds. Within a few minutes we have to fill the point or speed bar by repeating jumps from the ramp or checking the speed on a speed camera. We have no chance to make it alone, so the more players, the better, and the view of a group of cars converting every now and then over a short section of the road enriches the usual exploration with a lot of fun. It is worth collecting points for all Forzathon challenges, because they are the currency in the new game store with unique cosmetic elements and cars. Activities on the main map have also become dedicated PvP modes, such as playing the king, the infected or a car variation on the capture the flag.

Change to winter tires without queues

Regardless of whether we play solo or in a group - the biggest novelty will be the map of Great Britain, which impresses at any time of the year and in any weather. Impressive is not only the extensive open air during fast driving, but also the details of objects, wherever we stop. Country houses look picturesque like a postcard, and on the boards in front of pubs you can read the entire menu with a range of sandwiches. The area may not impress with its size or far from the standard of Ubisoft titles, but it makes up for it with the quality of workmanship and variety of landscapes - from forests and fields, through villages, the coast, field airport, highway, historic attractions, to Edinburgh and the harsh hills of Scotland, which the game is definitely too little.

Cars are bought here at F

However, if you turn a blind eye to this lack of somewhat more revolutionary changes, Forza Horizon 4 defends itself with many perfect elements that the car fans liked very much, leaving behind competition in the form of The Crew or NFS . Show races, in which we compete with some unique vehicle in the form of a train or a jet, are still making a huge impression with their scripts and it is probably mainly for them that we count a number of sprints and ordinary laps along the way. Forza is also a guarantee of a refined driving model that remains extremely affordable both when controlling the pad and the steering wheel, and at the same time does not resemble driving with a sliding soap bar.

The list of available cars may seem slightly disappointing. This is still a considerable number of over 400 cars, with unique representatives of British technical thought, but many brands seem to be represented a bit too symbolically, with a flood of various cars from Ford and Ferrari stables . Surprisingly, the complete lack of Rolls-Royce models, which were in recent editions, and here they are asking for a presence around British possessions on the map. It is also worth mentally preparing for the prize draw for the next level, because in addition to virtual currency and cars, such gains as white ballerina or a pink jacket for our avatar are waiting for us . Every petrolhead will probably break down a little when instead of the Pontiac GTO he will fall out of brocade leggings, but for younger players a virtual driver may be an additional attraction.