It’s been six long years since Forza Motorsport 7 was released, and since then, Turn 10 has been hard at work in what it’s calling a fresh new start to the series. Dubbed “Forza Motorsport,” this new, next-gen iteration serves as a reboot with big promises of being the best racing simulator with unmatched visuals. Does Forza Motorsport cross the finish line to reach new levels of glory, or is this one racer that should have remained in the pitstops? Let’s find out.
Relationship Building
Level, build, and dominate. These are the three pillars of Turn 10’s rebooted Forza Motorsport, designed to give racers what can be described as a relationship-building experience between you, your cars, and the tracks.
For Forza Motorsport, this all begins with The Builders Cup, a series of tours that’ll put your racing skills to the test. With Forza Motorsport’s new simulation physics, it’s one test that will undoubtedly prove challenging, as all races are a competition now.
The new physics system sees the tires now having eight points of contact rather than the previous one point, offering better drivability and more realistic behavior all over the track.
Fans should notice the difference when stacked against past Motorsports games, with suspension and other mechanics offering increased realism.
In ways, the new driving physics comes naturally to the player, emulating real-life driving. You’d be doing a disservice if you didn’t play this with a racing wheel, though the thrill and excitement of driving at high speeds, drifting around every corner, can be felt on the controller.
The single-player campaign, known as The Builder Cup, will have players experiment with all the new systems that Turn 10 has developed. However, as noted, it also offers a unique experience that lets you build a personal connection with the cars you drive.
Your bond with a vehicle grows for every turn you take and every race you win, unlocking new potential to help you dominate the competition. By the end of my tour, I grew pretty fond of my cars, enough to sit in reflection and take them all out for another spin around the track.
It’s a fun and engaging campaign with bits of narrative thrown here and there to give players some history of the tours, though don’t expect anything too deep, especially with the available tracks and modes. That level of depth comes in the form of player progression.
Practice Makes Perfect
What I consider to be Forza Motorsport’s stroke of genius moment is its level of guided learning and accessibility. No, I’m not talking about all the in-game options that auto drive, brake, shift, and other things for you, but instead how Turn 10 Studio has taken the simulator aspect of the game and made it welcoming to new and veteran players without being intrusive to the core experience.
Being a racing simulator, there’s a “hardcore” aspect to the game, as it sheds away the arcade-style physics you’d find in the Forza Horizon series and opts for realism on the track.
That means that controls and physics are tighter, and compared to the looser, more floaty physics of an arcade racer, sims are generally more punishing. One wrong push of the joystick could lead to losing control of your vehicle, causing you to spin out, crash, and burn.
It’s not a genre for everyone, but for this racer, it’s that level of realism that makes me flock to these games (and other franchises) every time.
Even I can admit that sometimes these sims can be a little hard to get into, and for Forza Motorsport, they’ve always tried to be more accessible by providing players with a rewind functionality. Made a mistake that caused you to move into last place? Worry not; you can simply rewind to the point of that mistake, avoiding whatever you did to cause it.
It’s a bit of cheating, but it’s always been a welcomed feature from the fans. I use it constantly as it beats restarting an entire race because of some fumbling at the end.
But rewind isn’t a feature I’d say provided me with a deep level of learning from my mistakes. It’s more of a clutch to use whenever I want. It’s a clutch that’s dangerously easy to get addicted to, though it won’t save you online for obvious reasons.
This is where Forza Motorsport begins to take center with its experience, as several new mechanics have been built to teach players how to drive without being too intrusive about it.
One of those features I’m talking about is the pre-race practice laps you do (can be skipped) before a race. Pre-race practice laps are designed to help you familiarize yourself with a track before competing against AI racers. You get three timed laps, with an additional 10 minutes of practice after that are optional. There’s no pressure, even if other AI racers sometimes drive alongside you. You get to learn all about a track, and it even earns you XP, so there’s an incentive to do them.
But it’s not just a 3, 2, 1, and you’re off until you finish. As I mentioned, practice laps are a way for players to familiarize themselves with a track, and one of the ways Turn 10 has enforced this is through track checkpoints known as key sectors. These are the most challenging parts of a track, typically a sharp corner requiring the utmost control and focus.
Key sectors are tracked and timed for each lap, with the goal being for each passing lap to beat the last time you hit in these sectors
It’s a simple mechanic, one we’ve seen in plenty of racers before, even in the Forza series. Though I’d argue with the addition of pre-race practice laps, they play a much more important role this time.
Learning the layout of a track is one thing, but learning how to tackle these corners on the fly is another thing, and sectors lean in on teaching them to you.
In a typical scenario, I’m going through these practice laps, with my first lap being my worst, not just in time, but in amounts I’ve found myself off the road and using the rewind feature. My second lap shows massive improvements, with my third seeing me rarely use the rewind. Key Sectors played a role in that, as each time I went through them, there was a bit of guidance and an incentive (extra XP) to do better at them each time. When it came to the actual races, I found I had been hitting each of those sectors perfectly on my first lap up to the finish.
This will be a weird analogy, and probably one that’ll get memed on, but in some ways, it reminded me how FromSoftware approaches their bosses and level design in their Soul games. No, I’m not saying that Forza Motorsport is the Souls game of racers, so get that out of your head and stop rolling those eyes.
What I’m saying is that FromSoftware has mastered the art of teaching. You confront a boss, you fail, and you reflect on why you failed. Go at it again, make a bit of progress, fail again, learn again, and apply again. Once you succeed, there’s this overwhelming feeling of satisfaction, knowing that you learned how to beat something without it being pointed out to you in the most obvious of ways.
Turn 10 has captured that very thing, at least for me. For every practice lap I did and for every tour I beat, I could feel and see myself becoming a better driver.
There are several other mechanics I found that offered encouragement for learning. The narrator, for example, will, from time to time, remind you that it’s okay to experiment with some of the many accessibility options, as well as turn them off one by one as you get better and better.
I started as a novice, and by the end of the campaign, I had upped the difficulty to the max while removing all forms of accessibility. I grew to that skill level naturally, all thanks to the several mechanics in place.
Forza Motorsport maintains aspects of being a full sim racer but does so without throwing you in the heat of it with the expectations of you needing to be good.
I know this is usually handled by the class of races offered, with it getting more and more difficult with progression in most racing games, but this seems like a fantastic evolution to further improve and enhance the player’s experience.
However, don’t think for a minute that this means Forza Motorsport has sacrificed difficulty for accessibility.
One of the significant improvements in this iteration of Forza is the AI system. Turn 10 has noted that the AI in this iteration has evolved with machine learning, offering the most realistic AI system in a Forza game thus far.
This has led to races that are cleaner, tighter, and more thrilling as the AI acts as humanly as possible with new track lines and braking points to follow.
Their aggression has been scaled back, too, though that’s also dependent on the selected difficulty level you’ve set for them. I always start on the easiest and work my way up, and even on the lower difficulty, I’ve been surprised by how aggressive the AI can be. I’ve had them run me off the road a few times, but that may have been my fault as I’ve slammed into them.
Other improvements include the AIs taking up the whole road versus following a straight line behind each other. That reflects playing online with others, as no one follows each other in a perfect line. Everyone’s always out to try and overtake one another, and during races, you can see the AI react in such manners with you and the other AI drivers.
The important thing is that the AIs aren’t unbeatable. Of course, on higher difficulty, that may be a different opinion for some, but for the most, you won’t feel cheated by them as there is a fair level of balancing. So much so that they, too, can make mistakes, such as veering off the road and crashing into other drivers. I had one try to cut me off, as if I was in its blind spot, only to see it swerve away as if it noticed me at the last second.
Then there’s the subject of the rubber banding. For those unaware of what rubber banding is, it’s those moments where an AI racer is far ahead, and they purposely slow down (speed up if they’re behind you) for you to catch up, only to slingshot away the moment you catch up at what seems to be impossible speeds. It’s meant by design to keep the pace of excitement flowing, though many in the Forza Horizon community can probably agree that rubber banding is completely broken.
The reason is that it’s too apparent, and when it happens, the AI performs nearly impossible feats for most players. Forza Horizon 5 had some of the worst in the franchise, with AI drivers having a magical grip and the ability to take corners as if they were nonexistent. This became evident when players began to review the lap times of AI drivers. The third lap would often see drastic improvements, so much so that an AI driver placing in last could outperform every other drive for best lap times. Tell me how that makes any sense!
On the other hand, the Forza Motorsport series hasn’t had to deal with this issue too much, and thankfully, it still doesn’t, as Turn 10 made sure not to rely on cheap tactics in this iteration.
Their cars may be tuned faster and drive better, but they won’t slow down when they’re in the lead. Sadly, once you get ahead, they seem to “give up” as you quickly leave racers in the dust. Higher-difficulty AI will offer better chases, though I’d like to see the AI tweaked a bit at every level. It can get lonely being in the first place the last few laps of a race.
Practice laps also offer a bit of a surprise challenge. Most times, they’ll take place on a clear and sunny day. The actual race itself can feature different weather and different starting times of the day. Just because you perfected laps from practice doesn’t mean you’ll do that well in the actual race. Roads can be slippery because of a violent ongoing storm. You could be driving in complete darkness, with the only source of light being that from your headlights and nearby streetlights. The track could be covered in dense fog, offering low visibility. The weather and day and night cycle are all dynamic in Forza Motorsport, something the practice laps won’t prepare you for. Driving physics will react differently depending on the weather.
CaRPG
Forza Motorsport has a new progression and upgrade system in the form of individual vehicle leveling. Every car you buy and own will have its own level of progression, and the higher they are, the more parts you unlock for that vehicle. This has received somewhat of a mixed reaction since it was announced, as you must level up each car to unlock parts for them. It doesn’t carry over to the identical model vehicles either; you have to level that one up, too.
You could say this makes for a grindy progression system.
Thankfully, leveling up is relatively fast, and the currency awarded is generous. You can probably max out a vehicle (level 50) in over an hour, unlocking all its upgrades for you to play with. If you aren’t too big on tuning, a quick upgrade option automatically upgrades vehicles with all the best-suggested parts.
Some also like having duplicates of specific vehicles, using one for drag racing (coming later) and the other for competition. You can save vehicle set-ups, so at the least, you don’t have to worry about leveling up the same car twice to have multiple set-ups.
For the progression itself, almost anything you do will earn you XP and car points. As I said, it’s fast and generous, and simply driving and hitting a high sector score will earn you XP during races. You’ll level up several times during a single tour, with both practice and competitive races giving you XP.
I enjoyed the new progression system, but I can understand where someone might not be a fan. Grinding out to earn enough currency to buy your favorite car, only to be progression-locked because you want to max it out immediately, can get annoying. It’s wasted time, even if it’s quick. If enough players don’t like it, I’m sure Turn 10 will change it, but for the most, I’d say expect an alright system that feels rewarding in the end.
A New Visual Benchmark for Racing Games?
Ever since Forza Motorsport came onto the racing scene, one of its biggest draws has always been around its visuals. That may be due to its competitor, Gran Turismo, as both franchises have always strived to have the most realistic cars and tracks in any racing game. You could say they’ve both pushed each other to new heights and for Forza Motorsports, those new heights include full ray tracing support and ray tracing global illumination on PC.
Forza Motorsport is gorgeous, an absolute beauty of ray trace features. Cranking everything up on ultra, with reflections set as high as possible, the sheer amount of visuals produced from the vehicles alone makes this one of the best-looking racers to date. Ray trace isn’t just a replay mode feature; on both PC and Xbox, you can use it while playing (not strictly in replay or garage). Replay mode looks better, but the gameplay is pretty damn close this time around for visuals. The details in all the cars, combined with ray tracing, are an absolute treat for car enthusiasts. I am mesmerized by how damn good reflections look, not just on the vehicles but everywhere else on the track.
The new lighting system is fantastic, too, adding a depth of realism as it dynamically reacts as you move around a track. Seeing the sun try and poke through some clouds during a cloudy day, with god rays shining parts of the track, is a site to behold. All tracks feature a day and night cycle, so the lighting changes according to the time of day as you race around it.
All the various weather effects and how lighting reacts to them make for some of the best we’ve seen in a racer. Thick fog will sweep across tracks, limiting lighting. Meanwhile, rain will wet surfaces and vehicles, causing light and reflections to scatter gorgeously.
The car damage system has also been improved in this iteration of Motorsport, now offering more detailed scratches and directional denting. These can be purely cosmetics, or if you want, you can crank some simulation options up and have it be service-impacting. Just don’t go in thinking this will resemble anything like Burnout Paradise. I don’t think we will ever see a racing simulator reach those heights, mostly likely due to car manufacturers. Still, the improved damage system is much welcome and better than just a few scratches, like in some other racers.
To help set a more realistic tone, Turn 10 has also shifted its focus on visual improvements to objects outside the track. There is noticeably more foliage, with grassy patches now clearly visible, rather than it being some odd patch of textures. Trees have more lush to them, and structures throughout look far better than they have ever. I know some may say, who cares, you’re playing a race game, but addressing the visuals of the environment goes a long way to crafting what I may consider to be the most realistic racing game out there.
Sadly, the human NPCs on the side of the track still look like they’re ripped out of a PS1 game. Neary, every racing game has that issue, and I suppose it’s to lower the load on the CPU. You wouldn’t notice them anyway unless you zoom in, but it’s hilarious to see, nonetheless.
For performance, Forza Motorsport rocks a solid 60fps with everything set to ultra on a PC equipped with an RTX 4090 GPU. That 60fps is capped by choice, but if you want to play it unlocked, the option is included, along with DLSS support. The build I played on only had DLSS support, and I am unsure if AMD’s FSR and Intel’s Xess will be available at launch. I did notice that FSR 2.0 was listed as a setting in the benchmark test, but it wasn’t an option in-game yet.
The Xbox Series X version also supports ray tracing on the track through either visual mode (30fps) or a performance-plus ray tracing mode, which targets 60fps. Honestly, the performance plus ray tracing mode is the way to go; as though it loses a bit of image quality, you’d hardly notice it at the speeds you’re moving. I’d say it’s comparable to a PC running on high to possibly ultra, with a few settings, such as shadows and anti-aliasing, turned down.
Regardless of your platform, Forza Motorsport looks astonishing across the board, and with 60fps options available on all platforms, this is by far the most visually impressive Forza game to date.
One Final Lap Around the Track
Although I’m not too fond of the always-online requirement, looking beyond that, Turn 10 has, without question, delivered its best racing simulator to date with Forza Motorsport. From all-new driving physics to a host of new accessibility options and realistic visuals with some of the best ray tracing implementation I’ve seen in a racer. Forza Motorsport is sure to satisfy any fans of the series out there when it comes to its simulator gameplay.
But beyond that, there are a few areas that could use some fine-tuning. Specifically in its RPG mechanics, which can feel like a grind for upgrading vehicles. It also lacks tracks and modes, but that’s something that can be fixed over time. It’s still an issue for launch, though I’m sure in the year to come, Turn 10 will have Forza Motorsport firing on all cylinders to make it the ultimate racing simulator.
Score: 8.5/10
Pros:
- Career leans on teaching you the ins and outs of professional racing. I could feel myself becoming a better racer with every corner taken and every race won.
- CaRPG mechanics have a sense of progression and reward but could use more tuning.
- The new physics system is one of the best we’ve seen in a racing sim.
- Incredible graphics, with ray tracing taking it to the next level.
Cons:
- Always-online for progression – It has many online focus features, but the campaign should be playable offline entirely. Free races are available offline, but no progression can be made anywhere unless you are connected online.
- Vehicle upgrades are locked behind leveling, and you must upgrade every car. No class base unlocks, something I hope gets tweaked.
- Track list is surprisingly light. Will be fixed with the planned content drop, but at launch, it’s missing a lot of iconic tracks that have really stood out.
- Lack of modes.
Forza Motorsport review code was provided by the publisher. The main version tested was PC. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.