Is Forza Horizon Still a Racing Game? 

The sandbox-approach to modern Forza Horizon probably also explains why its progression is almost non-existent in modern titles. They just want you to experience as much as you possibly can and play around with all the tools they offer you. The fact that Forza does a lot of stuff rather than one thing extremely well (aside from maybe game performance & polish) is its main appeal nowadays, and might also explains why old school fans now think its become "souless".

That end quote, "It's a racing game where you can do anything you want...unless that thing is racing" perfectly sums up FH at the moment. Also I don't get why people say if you want competitive racing go play motorsport because have any of them tried a motorsport lobby recently? Racing is just as bad if not worse than in Horizon as people have the same mentality but now with the added issue of a broken penalty system.

My experience with FH5 was like: Finish the street and road race campaigns; Go to the auction house to snipe the rarest cars; Become a milionaire by reselling them; Uninstall the game. I think the most fun I've had with the game was sniping cars in the auction house. Weird, considering it's a racing game.

When I saw the thumbnail and title, I thought you were having a laugh. "Of course they're racing games," I thought to myself. But the longer I watched the video the more I understood what you're saying. It made me realise that I really only play Horizon 5 for the creative aspect anymore. I like making liveries and tuning cars to their max without worrying about online racing and making up stories about what the driver of the car is like. Where they come from, who they are, their interests, their jobs and hobbies outside of racing. I have fifty of these characters put together now and I've been working on it since 2017 or so. And the thing is... I don't even take the cars out for a drive when I'm done customising. The lore and appearance are all I care about. Because, honestly, the racing is boring in Horizon for me anymore, and has been since the fourth game. I can't put my hand on it. This problem has extrapolated to the new Motorsport too. I only played the new Motorsport for 2 hours before returning to and playing the earlier Forza games. I hopped on Forza Motorsport 2005 and I realised that - wow - this game is as fun as I remember it being. I'm not sure if it's all the new cars (I dislike most cars made within the last 10 or so years), the presentation, the physics or what has me so dead-bored with racing in the newer titles. I think it's what you said... maybe Forza aren't racing games anymore.

I think grumpy hit nail on the head with the competitiveness not being inherently tied to realism.

Personally, I bought the FH5 just to design car decals, drift and cruise around. Whenever I entered online races, I encountered toxic people, open drift the same way (with broken cars). It's fun for me to turn off the HUD completely, turn on a vinyl mix and cruise around.

I started playing Horizon pretty soon after the OG came out, and I think one of the main things that made me stop playing was just how long I had played it. I heard somewhere that after 7 or so years of doing something, you get completely bored of it. I played 1-3 a lot, and only played 4 a bit, and barely touched 5.

45 views? Wtf is going on here? This is Fastminer we're talking about!

This was really well done, good look into what modern day Forza is, but consider this, its good to ask the question as to why games exist, what is their purpose, aside from entertainment its an escape from one reality to another. People who love something or are interested in something will run at the chance to satisfy that desire, even if they cant afford to so racing games are where people with a passion or interest in the sport or cars in general go to. People love cars for different reasons and Horizon is the only good option to satisfy most of those reasons. As a racing game its not the best only because of the fact that the community is really diverse in the traditional sense of the use of that word.

The last words truly summed it up Why do I fire Horizon up? I might want to drift a little, I might want to do some top speed runs, some goofing around, play eliminator (in H4) What do I do when I want to race with a car I fancy racing right now? I shut Horizon off and play something that has that car...

Forza Horizon 1, 2 and 3 were great, but in the newer ones there isn't really that vibe or sense of speed that it used to have, you also get all the cars and tons of money after a few hours of playtime so there isn't really any point to play afterwards.

It's a good day when Fastminer uploads a new video!

Woah, awesome timing. I just watched the deterioration video earlier today. What a great follow-up. Perfect topic for me too. Funny enough I recently bought Horizon 5, not for racing at all, but for driving practice. I just hop in and drive amongst the traffic like a normal driver haha. The games openness and options are why I picked it for that purpose. I will agree the music isn't the best, but there are mods for that :)

I can understand the car-culture in Forza Horizon as a genre. Aside from seeing it as a racing game, I see it as exploring type of open-world driving game. My experience was at FH2 was doing a lonely drive all-over the map and It feels.....nice. And nostalgic perhaps. Also, I can my mind own business listening to CHVRCHES when I'm on the road.

So here’s my bit as a long time racing game enthusiast. To me yeah, racing games are pretty much what you summarize at 6:25 and I would’ve agreed more on a basic level. For as long as I have played them I’ve always loved the racing part of a racing game. But it’s not the ONLY thing that I enjoy the most. I’ve also liked to tune and customize my vehicles to my liking as well as trying out different ones to see how they do in a race. There’s also doing things for the sake of making content on my channel, or if I don’t feel like racing I would just explore and relax without mentally preparing myself for anything. For what I’ve noticed especially since we’re talking Forza. I have noticed that Forza is becoming (or at least trying to become) something of what the community can make use of to create something lovely. And the fact that there’s still some communities out there that like to keep things competitive in the Forza community sounds like really great stuff! But does everyone else think that Forza Horizon is still a racing game solely for the racing? That remains to be in questioned right now.

You know it's a good day whenever you see a new Fastminer vid in your recommended. Awesome vid man, I personally waiting for when you cover the Crew Franchise but am also excited to see you cover unconventional racing games like Driver San Francisco or Split/Second. As always keep it up dude, you'll be at 100k in no time

The good thing with older FH was, you needed to progress, grind and then you get to enjoy the sandbox type of game it was, now you spawn and get everything too quickly

FM3 and FH3 were the only games I could really dive deep into, also GT3 when I was younger. I’m seeing a pattern 😂

It was a great video! I agree with you, I am relatively new to this game and the series and even i don't play it for the racing. I did most of my races in the first few hours of playing, after that I just started doing different stuff. Like recently I have been challenging myself with upgrading and tuning as I don't know much about them. And it's funny doing those things. Love your videos :)

This was really interesting - really articulates a couple things I couldn't put my finger on. Aside; the avenue of car culture thing makes me think of the Tokyo X-treme Racer games (and the more recent Night-Runners)

love these types of videos, keep up the good work!

Just passed to say how good is your video. Good points about the game and good explanations of those points. Made me think about joining those racing communities. Thanks for this video!

Some of the most fun I had in FH5 was chasing my friends' rivals times. But once they moved on from rehashing the same old races each week for the seasonals and stopped playing i stopped shortly after too. It really doesnt help that they designed races in such a way that you could end up last every time and still make it to the hall of fame thing anyway. Being good at the racing part of the racing game has no real impact I feel

HELL YEAH A UPLOAD! THIS MAN IS SAVING ME FROM DEPRESSION KEEP UP THE CONTENT AND STREAMS PLSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I've been watching this channel since the Art of Touge Vid and man, its really cool seeing a creator grow and spread his wings like this. Lemme not forget to also say that your Vids are FIRE hahahahha. keep doin what u doin man

Just found this channel. Love the content man. Excited to watch all your videos. Much love. Subscribed!

Honestly, I play forza to just cruise around. When I first played the game I got so much money, I didn’t know what to do with it all to be honest. And for the time that money has lasted, I’ve never raced. I just bought fun cars to modify to my personal liking and cruised around in them. And when I ran out of money I just went back to racing to make money, almost as if the races were a chore.

Opening youtube and having one of ur vids in my recommended is like a drug 🙏

Personally, I have played a very wide variety of racing games through out my life. Arcade, Sim-Cade and Simulator racing games. And having played Forza Horizon since the third instalment in the series, I usually always put Horizon in the sim-cade category, since it did have some simulator aspects but not that many, so it definitely leaned more towards an Arcade experience. But that's just the racing, and as you say FastMiner07, you don't really do racing that much in the game when it comes down to it. Sure the physics in the game are good and really fun, but you just don't really experience it that often since you're not racing around in the game as much as you'd expect. But, as it stands right now, I would not put the Horizon series into any of the 3 usually racing categories, no. I'd actually put it into one I don't think many would have thought of. I'd categorize the Horizon games, as a Car Experience Simulator. Cause you don't play these games to see who's faster and make the fastest lap times, no, you play these games to experience the cars you're driving, to experience the world/culture that's around you when you're driving around. That's what the Horizon games are about. And when you think about it, The Crew Motorfest ends up in the exact same category as the Horizon games, it's focus is also not the racing, it's the experience of driving luxury or rare cars you would almost never get the chance to drive in real life.

We are starting the year with a banger. Good job Fastminer continue the awesome work and I hope you have an awesome year. (2024) I also hope in the future you can make the decline of need for speed as a video cause I gave that recommendation on the past midnight club video.😉

Fastminer cooking bangers again 🔥 Thanks for having me on. I think you're spot on with your conclusion. The reason why there is a competitive scene in the first place really boils down to competitive players not finding what they were looking for, so they created it for themselves. Looking back, the amount of great memories I've got and the people I've met made it all worth it, I just with it became as great as it could have been. Thanks for shedding some light on this and thanks for honoring me with consulting me for my opinion. Legend 👊

I honestly think my biggest issue with FH5 and what stops it being a racing game in my opinion is the progression and car unlock system. In traditional racing games, unlocking cars meant grinding for money and maybe winning certain specific events for that car. In FH4/5, it means completing the seasonal events. You can't decide to focus on one event type or car class, as you just have to complete whatever events or activities the seasonal objectives dictate - and I genuinely can't remember a single one of these objectives that has been unique or enjoyable. This means that, unless you want to try your luck on the auctionhouse (which for people without perfect connection is essentially unusable), the rewards for non-seasonal races are entiterly pointless. No matter how much money you win, you can never buy a t50, you just have to wait for it to come around as a seasonal car. The other issue that arrises from this is that you feel almost no accomplishment when you do unlock a car. You havent grinded through a difficult race series, beaten a rival, set a fast timetrial time - you've just finished the perscribed events. The gameplay to unlock your dream car is no different than any other seasonal event.

I like racing in FH. Everything I do in game is either racing or preparing for a race, like acquiring a specific car or making a tune. Or training for a race, be it blueprint practice or HRA.

Forget the content - this is really slick and well edited! And the content is great too!

Another pretty good video. Would love to see you explore some different genres or just some random racing games.

damn near just jumped out my seat seeing you posted

Whenever I boot up Forza Horizon, I head straight online to custom races. There are rarely empty lobbies and even then I've met many people that loves same custom races as I do that they've created a community where we chat while racing online. My one friend will experiment with one car for several hours as we race online for hours on end, each new day he'll use a new car even if it's not competitive. The game for us is purely racing, clean and fast online racing.

I spent a lot of time in the FH series just driving around, especially to relax after work.

1) Nice vid my man! and 2) I peep the noname, great taste.

Fh4 in middle school!? I graduated middle school in 2017, I’m just surprised I’m older than you. Good content bro 😎

10:25 I didn't expect that i gonna be in video as a footage from Dayshi caster stream watching my pov on LDAC vs GRG event at that moment. That's a nice suprise, free promotion for me and Dayshi.

I had no idea you were recording while we were doing rivals. Great vid btw

That part at 6 minutes where you display clips in time with that vibey af music is just.. yes. Please put something like that in every video 😂

As always, great video! I also highly agree with what you point out in this video, although I have one other issue with the game in terms of racing and why I don't really drive Horizon Open f.e.: The Netcode... In Horizon 4 you could easily race side by side, go for a gap and just have a good race. In Horizon 5 meanwhile you can have half a cars width between you and your opponent at times and hit each other, or even worse back end someone even though you didn't really. I'm a Simracer and I have my competition in RaceRoom and Rennsport, I don't play Forza to be the most competitive, but I still would like to be able to race properly in a game I otherwise really enjoy, which in 5 just isn't possible. It's pretty sad seeing how good the controls are, I'd even go as far as saying they are the best Simcade Physics out there beating GT and FM by quite a margin, as they want to be more realistic but by doing so feel rather unfun. It's like an uncanny valley imo. Horizon became a good Sandbox with lot's of opportunities. I can do everything I want and have lots of options to do. I enjoy a lot of stuff I can do there like drifting, rallying, building cars or just messing around in the world, using the Eventlab and so much more, bunfortunately racing is barely one of them anymore. TL:DR - Horizon is one of the best car games out there, but not the best place to go race in.

RU-vid algorithm doin this video dirty. Another great review and deep dive!!

I'm 25 and man, the opening of your vid made me laugh so hard. Guess which games are still on my pc to this day? Minecraft and racing games. Thanks for talking about this, I think a lot of us in the racing community appreciate having an intelligent conversation about it.

So great video aside, does Gran Turismo 4 have just the best music? I love hearing it whenever it pops up in videos about racing or otherwise

Bearwalker Eevee board in the background is 🔥

Great video again! While I personally generally love Forza Horizon ( started with 3 on PC ) there always comes a point where I lose all interest in Forza. I am not even a car guy, I don't even have a car, but I always just liked arcade racing games, starting with The Need for Speed 1994. I wish Forza Horizon had at least a championship/cup mode that is just racing. That is something I do miss there. I still do play DiRT 3 with the ACAT-mod and often just replay the Finland, Michigan, Kenya, Norway & Monte Carlo cups in the career mode. Probably one reason why it is my most played racing game.

Tbh when hopping on FH5 I just do the seasonal stuff and then aimlessly cruise or drift around the map.

I've been told to say, "GLORY TO FIDA!"

Great video, and even comments, it is cool to see the different reasons why everyone enjoys Horizon. Personally, as someone who liked just driving around in Test Drive Unlimited or The Crew, I think later Horizons are lacking in 3 ways: - limited car interactivity - walking around the car, rolling down windows or roof, using turn signals, hell even being able to test drive cars you wanted made a connection to a car and simple driving more enjoyable - more interesting map - I had a ton of fun trying to explore in The Crew, even if the map honestly wasn't that amazing. Horizons are trying to be interesting but they just do not captivate me the same way. The maps are decently well polished and thought out, I just don't see a reason to simply drive to a random point. - lack of challenge from both cars and roads themselves - a lot has been said about Horizon's wide roads, even the jungle feels like a highway lined with trees at times. The cars are also extremely planted and easy to control. It may sound weird, and it perhaps isn't the best solution, but I think the bumpy, low poly roads in TDU, and less the great physics of The Crew added extra challenge to simple point A to point B drive that isn't there with Forza.

Love the Jimmy Broadbent feature!

23:35 - ESGrumpy genuinely hit the nail on the head here

I've become a big fan of the series though it has sadly drifted away from what it's supposed to be. I enjoy having a game with a story, good atmosphere and some sort of progression but FH doesn't have that any more, it's just kinda bland. You collect cars, do an online lobby now and again, do the Festival Playlist, maybe do some eventlabs, rinse and repeat. You can have competitive online racing of course but unless you have a proper group to play with you will probably have a rammer or two in them. I do FH5 content to some degree doing car reviews of sorts like ISAD, I play this game for the online aspect at the moment. It can be fun at times but it's also exhausting to play if you want to race properly. It's a casual game for people who just want to have fun but it sadly gets stale after a while imo. Great video Fastminer

I played a LOT of this game with my friends. We played through the Goliath time and time and time again and just kinda talked while we got better at racing

It’s crazy how similar my gaming journey was to urs minecraft was the first game I got into until Forza horizon came free on games with games with gold at the beginning of 2016

I got FH5 just to collect cars... I love customizing the most desirable cars and dreaming of having them. Plus the graphics are awesome and the driving is OK, realistic-ish I guess... It fills the gap TDU left open very efficiently

half way into the video and i could boil down the leaderboard request as something like ""give us something akin to the TMX forums for TrackMania, but in Horizon""

I still try to hold racing events in FH5 such as F1, GT, Historic Racing, Hypercar (Le Mans), etc. I even played with you in FH4 for my Le Mans Post. So far I can only manage between 2 to 6 people IF they stay. I understand most players like cruising drags (no skill), and all that, but it must be boring after a while of doing that. So I’d say Horizon is in a way like GTA as you said, you don’t have to race.

Thank you for this video, that was very informative on the inside and communities of FH. I'm in a pocket where I want a realistic experience,, a virtual garage with all my loved cars BUT I don't need the competitive side of racing. IRL I'm more of a trackdays guy that like to wrench on his cars, my ego don't need to beats other people, I just need to have fun, polish my driving and learn my cars ins and outs. I own Asseto Corsa, Rfactor 2, Automobilista 2, Dirt Rally 1 & 2, RBR, some Grid editions and none of them come close to real life cars, for this reason my expensive setup is collecting dust for nearly a full year...😑

Hey great video. I have one question, what is the song at the beginning of the Why I loved forza horizon chapter? thanks!

Personally the thing that bothers me the most is the fact that from the first moment I opened FH5 I knew it would be a game made for kids who emulate youtube videos, to take pictures/meetings, do stuff on eventlab to put as a background of TikTok instead of BeamNG or GTA. All this has meant that the part concerning the races was taken care of less than 0...they don't even care about cleaning the rankings from cheaters because the core business has become the casual gamers who don't even do the races. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Forza no longer had weekly races to unlock new cars

5:59 i love that you included COLIN MCRAE DIRT 2 i love that game

I definitely had many problems with the game for the “competition & wheel to wheel racing”, but i had friends that loved it for aesthetic, photos, or just hanging out with like minded people like most car meetups. I’ve definitely walked away to go play actual simulators since i felt like they fit the bill for my personal criteria better. Assetto Corsa & DiRT Rally 2.0 are good for track practice (i avoided the online portion) and rally racing.

You are CRIMINALLY underrated

7:14 - they basically did that with Rayman M. No vehicles involved, just characters from the Rayman universe running, swinging and climbing along a track. It was actually quite fun. Edit: and of course you bring up a game pretty much just like it right after I thought I was smart in pointing that out, pausing the video and writing my comment :D

For about the past year my thoughts on the FH series are this - FH used to be a racing game and you used those cars to explore, now FH is an exploration game and you just happen to use cars to explore. So I too question if FH are racing games anymore.

I would like to hear your opinion on the crew series

is it me or it's quite similar when people say Cars 2 is better than 1 and 3 because it's emphasizes an "interesting" plot than just racing? lol fr this is such a genuine video to reflect about it. Personally I think games like BeamNG, GTA V or even the Driver games are essentialy Driving sandboxes games rather than a racing game because how actually good it feels while driving, especially just driving around to just relax in these games. (being realistic or not.) This made me see the other side of the current Horizon games in regards of it's community when they collective hang around and do stuff like these. Same that I had with Midnight Racing: Tokyo (a car game in roblox) where few dedicated players do racing to earn money/exp to mainl buy the cars/parts in doing other than that I just tested cars, tried building setups and hang around with people cruising all over the map and roleplaying. despite how limited the game and yet I have such a good experience I've never had before. So I think FH5 can bring some of that. tho I still hate when they give the best cars right out of the gate and other stuff like fomo but I clearly understand why people enjoy mainly of it's community which is sweet.

i think it's apparent from the structure of the game that no, it's definitely not a racing game. To unlock stuff you don't do races, you go on expeditions. The Horizon Story chapters are mostly not races either, they are just a remix of fh2 and 3's bucket lists (themselves a remix of fh1's pr stunts) and you know, sometimes it's fun to just hop in and cruise, take photos, make a livery, or do some light roleplaying. But in a car game, with the highest echelon of hypercars freely available for us to drive and smash around, this should definitely be a side activity, not the most significant part of the game. Imagine if Yakuza became a karaoke/mahjong game.

Please read this. I've been playing on PC since FH4 which was my first Forza game. Ever since the beginning I found the thing that I enjoyed the most was getting new cars, tuning them and racing strictly online. I never raced against bots unless I needed it for the weekly car. I was a top 50 ranked racer in FH4, I think the only other person on keyboard in top 50 was GrandmaDriving, I very much enjoy the feeling of cars, the handling, it's very unique to horizon. Doing the same with FH5 (although the lack of seasons and tracks makes it way more boring than FH4) And I've noticed this as well. People play Forza for different reasons, I see Ericship, Hoki, AR12, and a few others complaining about lack of car meets, lack of custom races, the Nissan Silvia isn't pixel perfect, etc. For me both FH4 and FH5 are hands down 9/10 games (would be 10/10 but I won't forgive them for adding pay2win cars, especially in FH4 with that Welcome Pack, straight up same cars already in the game but with upgrades allowing them to be straight up better). The only thing I want in the game is more tracks and more weather that impacts driving. Also more fixes to PI rating for next game, we still have overpowered cars like the Boneshaker and we even know what causes it. Still, I was very surprised and even somehow shocked how people were complaining that FH4 was bad because of those things I mentioned youtubers complaining about, I thought that's what people enjoyed in racing games, racing other people, which both FH4 and FH5 do an amazing job at, but apparently there's people that almost never touch online racing which is definitely something I didn't expect lol.

fastminer really is good, been watching for a good 5 months

I actually really like forzas "lack" of progression as i find it to be very refreshing to just hop on buy and tune any car and drive (reasonn why i have hundreds of hours in fh5) if i wanted progression i would play nfs of the crew maybe even tdu2. (great vid btw man keep it up) 👍

Ass creed had me rolling as a huge assassins creed fan i agree to that.

Amazing video!

This needs to blow up

I recently got a sim wheel. And forza 6 was absolutely amazing! The physics were exactly what i needed for learning. Horizon 5.... felt like everything was on rails. No physics, no weight. I unistalled horzon 5 in less time it took to boot up. (Which took a whooping 5 minutes)

made me laugh, good video

describing fh5 as a racing sandbox is the best way to describe it. the two big things that signal this is firstly eventlab, which is a great feature an let's you experience the game pretty much however you want. secondly, the dropping of ranked. the side of racing in fh5 i think is being lost without ranked and is one of things i enjoy most in the new motorsport. i think what would i like to happen is to bring back ranked in game, so it is easy to be competitive and unlike fm you are not restricted to one surface type. i think that current format of championships online is good, 3 races are good. secondly, make it so much easier to access eventlab. firstly getting to it is a pain in menus, the events should be arranged like searching for decals in the livery editor. also make eventlab more part of the game. eventlab in the festival playlist is a step but there should be seasonal eventlab solo and multiplayer championships in the playlists and online.

Nice new upload

I feel the same way but sometimes i just want to drive around the beautiful map and listen to music and get lost in it. And i don't think another game does it like the horizon series

That grid soundtrack at the end, such nostalgia.

13:58 MY MODEL 3 GETS A FASTMINER CAMEO YEEEAAAAHHHHHH On a directly related note, I feel like I grew out of a lot of Horizon’s charm as a gathering space the more I grew into the IRL car community. Nowadays I’ll just glance at my Xbox with the intention of hopping onto one of the myriad open-world arcade racers I have installed on it only to just get behind the wheel of my car and see where opportunity takes me- a lot like I would in the games (minus the overly reckless driving). It’s made me appreciate the car scene in SoCal a lot more but at the same time I feel that living out my childhood dreams is making me lose touch with them in the first place. Growing up is a hell of an experience.

dam didn't expect minecraft song to bring back crazy memories man, really nostalgic.

Yeah I spent maybe like, most of my time in forza in CvC looking for group posts lol. It got to the point where most of my garage was s1 cars built, with some that give cops a nightmare, and like 3 cop cars that are just plain dumb. I was there to have fun. And yeah I also agree with forza being mostly a sandbox game where you can drive with others and hangout, races were just there, sometimes the stories were somewhat cool and the seasonal stuff too

Super intriguing video

For me, Horizon is a racing game at it's core, and until they take out all racing, rivals, and stop timing the events, it will always be a racing game at it's core. To me, the repeatable items are what determine how the game is categorized, and those repeatable items are races, rivals, and seasonals (which are mostly racing based). IMO it's a racing sandbox. It has all the tools to be anything you can think of to relate to cars, but the core of it is, and imo always will be, racing. Even the career mode is almost entirely racing based with racing events, timed story modes, and simply doing something car based the best/fastest it can be done. I love the take though and it's what [I think] was the original goal of FH5 specifically, making is a car sandbox. I hope they go back towards FH4 mentality for 6 and give us all the pieces we should have had for this one, but don't forget racing.... or at least make it so you can progress how you want to through the game the way you play it.... kind of like the dirt island DLC for 5, but more fleshed out. Also, please let us start eventlabs from any location....... Super 7 can do it, not that anyone uses that.... Finally, thanks for the HRA shout out, please stop by if you are interested in racing on the game because we have the tools to help you get fast. Appreciate the shout out a ton!

Great video!

Free roaming and races are the only two things I do in horizon. I only play 4 but I feel like they nailed both of those elements. I have no complaints. Particularly road racing and dirt events. It doesn't matter how often I do them, it never stops being endlessly fun. When I play, it feels kinda like I'm in heaven. I'm also from the areas that horizon 4 is set in, and features so many areas that are very special to me so that just adds even more magic to it

10:40 ahaha wow that's old, I remember this thing

It's like newer battlefield games. They build an open world (an open, flat field) and put lots of random assets without focusing on their core gameplay. So you end up with a map that doesn't work well as a versus shooter (or in forza, a racing game) Then they make excuses, calling it a "car social game." But all I see are ghosts in an empty lobby. There was an online MMO racing game called Drift City (2007~) that did both racing and social aspects better than Forza. It even had AI truck bosses / AI driving cars to fight(Fight it like a mmo rpg. damage them until it lost all hp) with hurhards players.

these trackmania jumpscares keep getting me

You know, as someone who also grew up around the same era of games that you mentioned at the beginning of the video, it makes so mad that modern racing games have stagnated so much that we have to approach them differently or with an insane amount of compromises. Modern racing games have not evolved at the same pace as the rest of genres within the gaming industry and that's just simply due to the fact that making a racing game is so expensive and usually taxing on the developer. Because you know, for the fun arcade community driven racing game that is FH5 it sure makes you work around it's content rather than directly providing the tools to do what the discord communities do outside of the game. Here's to FH6 hoping it provides said tools.

what a coincidence that while editing my Forza Horizon video this comes out

Coming from IRL, FH5, while not the best horizon, is the best simcade/arcade racing game on the market by a lightyear, and is the best representation of irl car culture ever made into a game. Its a car culture simulator, and thats whats fantastic about it. You can jump from building a desert course for trophy trucks to slamming a lexus to the ground to ripping down a mountain in hypercars, to racing along the beach in classics. Its a game for those who truly love all cars, not just the "whats popular" focus of GT and NFS, and FH5 is unmatched at that

try tokyo xtreme racer for your racing fix, txr0/3 and drift 2 especially will keep you occupied and happy

This is why hybrid games are great. You can race all day one day in GTA and shoot people in the face all day the next. You can learn a song on Expert section by section in Rock Band and then impress your friends by leaving them in the dust. You can methodically work doors in Modern Warfare and get your friends to watch every possible angle at once to earn overpowered supports and become an action hero for 30 seconds. They reward players with a freely flowing mindset who can switch between engaging with two different, sometimes even conflicting design philosophies on the fly and enjoy elements of both. Usually in the arguments they start you'll find people who are wrong on both sides because they're coming from one genre or the other and expecting the game to only have the elements they're familiar with. Racers who don't like to party a little are just as out of place here as partygoers who don't like to race a little, to say nothing of the sandbox creation elements from the *third* genre Horizon pulls from. Isolating the part of the game you like to have fun with in your play sessions is one thing, but to say that's what it *is* ignores everything else

For me FH5 is about building cars and cruising, but also using those cars and checking if i can set any good times online with them. so i guess for me its 50%ish racing. Good video though

You reminded me one of the reasons why i bounced off of Forza after FH3. After experiencing H2 which i had a lot of fun with racing mainly and doing drifting and cruising from time to time. Then returning to PC and later H3 i felt like this one wanted me to hate racing. My disappointment after jumping to a new game with same settings + unbeatable difficulty like in previous after i've got a hang of it in Horizon 2 when racing was fun only sometimes experiencing AI rubberbanding but then in H3 doing races was more like a chore rather having some fun challenge bc rubberbanding is up to 11 and pairing that up with awful, unbalanced upgrade system, stupid awd meta that also was needed if you wanted to win races on highest difficulty i wanted to end campaign as quick as possible. So in virtual Australia i did more drifting alone or in tandems whether on parking lot in city, in small town at the end of the map or some other places, drag racing on airport or doing highway pulls or just cruising with different cars then meeting some ppl from random lobbies, adding them to friend list and doing some fun stuff with them. The worst thing about racing also was difficulty where one level lower felt too easy and the only option was using bullshit difficulty and just keep using all the luxuries that rewind gives you. Generally racing stopped being fun when I noticed every car for racing i built was almost like a shell/kit car with the same engine and drivetrain only difference where the engine was sitting. After that I fell off and lost my interest in Forza. Don't get me wrong i liked doing other things besides just racing like did back in the days of GT5. There i also loved doing all kinds of different things in online lobbies but even after doing other activities in Horizon up to some point i started to feel burned out. And regarding GT5 even if the game wasn't perfect there was a lot of stuff you could do and racing was still one of them. My problem started with Horizon 3 and generally a lot of modern racing games feels less "game-y" and more like some variation of car collector/sandbox simulator with some exceptions i.e Grid Legends, Assetto Corsa but lack of wheel heavily limited my experience 😞 , Dirt Rally, Wreckfest, NFS Heat at least from this games i've had pleasure playing.