Forza Horizon 4 Review
Playground Games latest isn’t just another sequel; its racing perfected.
Platforms: Xbox One, Windows PC
Developer: Playground Games
Release Date: October 2, 2018
Reviewed by: Zach Robertson (@BearClawGaming)
Beginning as a spin-off title at the end of the last console generation, Playground Games’ Forza Horizon series is now the star of Microsoft’s first-party roster. Sure, standing out amongst tired franchises and half-baked new IPs might seem easy, but the latest installment, Horizon 4, isn’t a complacent, serviceable sequel. No, Forza Horizon 4 is magnificent racer that confidently asserts itself as the best racing game in a decade.
Becoming the king of video game racing wasn’t sudden for Playground. In its Xbox One debut, Playground laid the groundwork for the Horizon franchise with a vast open world that had considerably more going on than the original installment, which was limited by the architecture it was built upon. Horizon 2 wasn’t perfect, and the game had more on-rails progression that eventually turned the rolling Italian hillside into a familiar slog. Horizon 3, which launched just two years ago, took all limits and rails off the series and allowed users to run the game world at their own pace and progress in whatever way they saw fit. Without any limits, it flirted with aimlessness.
Now, more mature and refined, Horizon 4 is a polished beast of its own. The reins are pulled a little tighter, the game world feels slightly smaller but more varied, the vehicle roster is expansive and diverse, the open-world map bulges with content to the point of almost overwhelming proportions, and all of it can be tackled or ignored to meet the player’s taste.
At the start of the game, players will find themselves in an extended section where they can, in just a few short hours, experience each of the game’s four seasons. After completing a full in-game year, players enter the core of the experience where time is persistent across all users’ gameworlds and seasons change on a real-world weekly basis. As the big selling point of Horizon 4, seasons are an effective gimmick that keep the environments fresh after hours, and days, of play time. The same winding roads and fields feel totally different in dreary autumn than they do in frozen winters or lush green springtime.
“Forza Horizon 4 is the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 of car racing games.” –Jay Cheatham, SDGC
Visually, it’s hard to imagine a game that looks as sharp as Forza Horizon 4 on Xbox One. Now boasting a visual mode with full 4K resolution and a separate performance mode that doubles the game’s framerate on Xbox One X, owning a premium console feels more worthwhile than ever. While performance mode gives slightly better response time and feel, I found myself sticking to the visual enhancements to get all the eye candy I could. In particular, off road racing in the fall and winter are visual feasts.
The soundtrack in Horizon 4 feels a little too familiar, especially considering how inspiring the rest of the package is. With a half-dozen stations ranging from classical and pop to electronic and hip-hop music, there’s plenty of variety. I didn’t think it was possible for a racing game soundtrack to feel so stale, but Horizon 4 does little new or different. The biggest downside is the lack of custom playlists supported through the now-defunct Groove music.
With its latest iteration, content and control is something Playground still hasn’t quite mastered. Progression in Horizon 4 feels a little convoluted with everything having a leveling meter. In addition to a general level tied to driver progression, there’s also progression meters for each of the race modes (off road, street, etc.). These come with a heap of rewards but also create an overwhelming sense of bloat around unlocks. Additionally, as players pull off impressive racing maneuvers on and off the track, they earn points. These points earn tokens that can be spent on a skill tree. Unlike previous installments, there’s no longer a single skill tree tied to a driver — now each of the games 400+ vehicles has its own skill tree. Eventually, cars within archetypes blur together and I reached a point where, without a logo telling me otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to say what made driving my Honda, Subaru or BMW different from my competitor’s. What’s likely to excite car enthusiasts can feel a little alienating or redundant for casual players.
This excess leeches over into the game world with a map that, at times, can be hard to parse as it’s littered with dozens and dozens of races, events and landmarks to check out. It feels like Playground is pointing at everything it has created proudly, but it doubles as an anxiety producer for those prone to fatigue. Thankfully, there are plenty of content toggles in the in-game map that allow players to hide race types and events they don’t have an immediate interest in.
One event the game won’t let players forget about are its Showcases. Showcase events have been a big capstone in the Horizon franchise since its conception. Massive, ambitious races designed to give a sense of scale and offer thrills that vary from the staple competition. Horizon 4’s setpieces are no different, with races alongside dirt bikes, hovercrafts, trains, and one of Xbox’s most iconic characters. While each of Horizon’s races is meant to provide a challenge for the player, Showcase events often feel pulled back enough to make them feel a little more cool and confident as they fly across the finish line with the competition in the rearview mirror. While each sticks around for just a few short minutes, the time spent in Forza Horizon 4’s Showcases was a meditation of everything I loved about the latest installment: Visually stunning, empowering and oozing with style.
Forza Horizon 4 seems like Playground Games signalling a major shift for its series. First, this won’t be a game that the studio plans to one-up in another two-year cycle. With a content outline and community events supported through the new #Forzathon live service, it seems Horizon 4 will simply be expanded on in the years to come, with a mainline sequel seeming farther off than usual. Recently acquired by Microsoft and rumored to be helming a Fable reboot, it might be awhile before we see Playground tackle Horizon 5, even if 4 is wildly successful. With its new live service model that inspires a Destiny-but-racing sense of possibilities, there’s no reason Horizon’s community won’t be able to sustain itself for years. The sheer wealth of content in the box day one is a great start, and it seems the studio is posturing for Horizon 4 to stick around.
While there’s still room for Playground to tune its “how much is too much” gauge, Forza Horizon 4 is still a damn-near perfect video game. The seasons offer varied game spaces, the progression system allows players to pick and choose what races are worth their time, Showcase events are as thrilling as ever and the new #Forzathon game design provides the groundwork for a persistent ever-changing ecosystem.
The best has arrived — you’re not going to need another racing game this generation.
Forza Horizon 4 was played using an “Ultimate Edition” review code provided by Microsoft.
