The Best Forza Horizon is: FH4 

For me, one of the best things about FH 4 is how lived-in and alive the world felt. Even a few years after release I was discovering new little houses or back-roads. Edinburgh felt so lifelike and even the open countryside felt full and rich with detail. A massive contrast to FH5, which feels empty and featureless. For me, that's where FH4 shines, more so than any other FH other than FH2

A Moment Apart was our wedding reception intro as well, all because of Horizon 4 and my wife listening to me play hundreds of hours on this game!

I was a really socially awkward kid before FH4 but its the awesome map exploration, meetups, and festival playlist grinds with online people really helped me get used to interacting with people and being myself, so I'm forever grateful to FH4 for that :) The Hospital Records OST also got me into DnB forever changing my music taste for the better. FH4 is one of my favorite games of all time 👍

Lining up for 5 or 6 wide highway races with randoms was the best memories I have of this game and I loved it. Making it to the other side first in your own customized expression of a car had a fulfilling feeling and I learned to respect peoples styles if I lost in a way I didnt irl or in other racing games. It led to great conversation in dm's sharing ideas and learning tuning when a car beat you and you wanted to know what the player had done to it. FH4 is on the mount rushmore. P.S. respect to everyone who didnt jsut pull out the S tier cars always when they lost.

For me it's like FH1, 2 and 3 tried to convince that you were in a real world, in a real festival. FH4 and 5 looks empty because you enter and have to do the playlist in that empty world. Breaks the illusion as a videogame.

While FH1 was the first Forza game I played, FH4 was the first game I shared with a friend who also liked cars as much as I do (my lil bro doesnt count lol). We spent SO much time racing that we were pretty 50/50 in most of our races. This game holds a special spot in my heart for all the good times.

Just want to say, nostalgia will always distort our views of these games, I can remember a time where the majority of the fanbase was in discontent with Forza Horizon 4.

People really didn’t like this game when it came out and now there’s a lot of nostalgic love for it. First Forza I played, and the central part of the map is based near where I live, so it was very influential for me and I love it! I think it will only be looked back on more fondly as time passes, I got bored of FH5 a lot quicker.

This game has a very special place in my heart. I saved up for months to buy the edition that would come with FD cars but unfortunately had to use the money for another thing. Now I got it and have been playing it non-stop for the past month or so.

Been playing it a lot recently. So so much better than 5. I can spend hours driving around, cruising. There’s so much more “hidden” areas

Winter was really good in this game, if you installed snow tyres on your car, and used cars that could handle the snow well, like 4x4s, 4wd rally cars and so on. Being from Sweden does make me biased towards winter and snow, and since 1999, you must equip your car with winter tyres in winter here in Sweden, so snow tyres is a very big thing in Sweden 👍

My worst gripe with this game was the car Sound that's was really it.

Fh4 for me really pulled it together. Great Britain may have felt quaint but for me it was aggressive and fast. The roads felt real and well traveled. The range of cars was second to none and a joy to look at as well as drive. I loved the seasons including the snow as it gave wonderful photo opportunities and a sense of challenge to one’s favourite routes. It felt natural. I’ve just returned to playing it after getting bored with FH5 and realised that I was never bored playing FH4 I only stopped as I felt I needed to upgrade to FH5. It’s good going back not through nostalgia but because it’s such a great game

Forza Horizon 4 was my first Forza and has had a special place in my heart. I live in northern England and holidayed often in amble side, the town on the north side of lake Windermere, and around the lake in general. It brings back memories of my family and my grandad whos no longer here, who I spent a lot of time with in the beautiful and scenic green country on these holidays. I think the game gets near to real life in the way that the rolling hills make you feel small and look never-ending as they dwarf your field of view. The driving on the winding roads you find up there (apart from the fact that they are far narrower) in contrast with the fast and straight motorways offer so much versatility in how you can drive. In addition to all the off roading that is possible there are so many ways in which you can experience the game. I love the setting and location but i might be a bit biased. I wonder what non-british people think about the location as i always find that northern England and Scotland to be a niche setting for a game and can't think of many games set there. Thanks for the video and hope you have a good one.

Always loved forza horizon 4. My wife recently showed interest in playing (keeper) and now I get to experience my favorite racing game of all time with her with fresh eyes through her progression.

Not all of the roads got covered in snow in fh4. Winter is personally my fouvrite season in forza. I love how roads get more slippery

I am a huge FH4 winter fan. Nothing feels cozier.

Winter was the best thing against cheaters (specially the ones with the Ingushetia flag). They where missing so many turns and checkpoints because of the speed they were going lmao.

Just waiting to see how you are going to convince us of 5 being any good.. "Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it..."

I only just discovered FH4 when I finally upgraded to Xbox One last December...talk about behind the times. This game is a work of art

Opening the video with the TR6 was an excellent choice. I really enjoy cruising this map in unmodified old sports cars. They may be slow but they're definitely entertaining!

There's a certain feeling of nostalgia when thinking of FH4, at least for me. I've spent so much time drifting and racing, both online and offline. Not to mention how successful it was for Microsoft too. Love this game

Sunrise is by far the best FH music bar none. I struggle to keep myself from crying everytime. Even typing it on YT and seeing the first video got me bawling

I remember back in 2018 going over to my friends house after he just got the game and we were playing it for the first time, it truly is a nostalgic game for many.

I really agree Most RU-vidrs and other people have fully opinionised that FH1 was the best

While I was personally not a fan of the week of winter every month, I miss the ability to have a full map of snow

Idk if this is intentional or not but with these videos coming out monthly, FH5s should come out next month and then in June, it’s possible that FH6 might get announced, would be a cool ending to this series

15:40 there's only one word for FH4's opening scene: tranquility

true, still playing FH4 to this day

I started playing Horizon 4 right around COVID, when I was living in my grandparents' basement with my cousin while my family was getting our new house ready. By that point, season rewards were unlocked at 80%, a lot of the features were already in the game, and there was a community with a solid foothold enjoying the game. It was honestly one of the best times of my life, hanging out with my cousin, driving cars, and exploring the game. I had moved back to the US a couple of years prior after living abroad for 8 years and through high school, I hadn't really made many friends; certainly not to the same level as the ones I had left behind. Picking up the game and feeling like I had walked into a party in full swing was a great way to escape the real world and make some friends, even if that friendship only lasted the length of our drive around the map. To paraphrase the current top comment, the world really did have more soul than Mexico. I'm not sure if it's down to how H5 has massive swaths of open land that you can see right across or just a lack of buildings, but everything in Britain felt much more dense. There was a lot to see and explore even in a small area, and the abundance of low rock walls and trees flanking almost every road seemed to make the map bigger. I get the same feel when driving in the jungle in H5, but it can't quite balance out the desert to bring that same experience back. The seasons as well were always one of my favorite parts of H4 and I'm one of the people who enjoyed winter as much as or more than summer. I'd take out a tuned Subie, the S1 Quattro, my own Lola T70 tuned for winter, or just have some fun and try to keep a road/track car under control at full throttle. To me, Mexico's seasons just don't bring enough variation and it kind of feels the same every time I log in. It may just be that I'm seeing it through rose-colored glasses, but despite the bias that nostalgia brings, Horizon 4 really is the best of the series. Granted, it was my first Forza title and I don't have first hand experience with the other games, but if nothing else, it was my personal favorite.

God I miss snow. FH5 is such a lifeless map.

FH1 and 2 will always hold a special place in my heart because I used to play them with my best friend in high school almost daily. He passed away right before FH4 came out and I played the hell out of it knowing that we would’ve been having so much fun on it together. I still play it and love it considerably more than FH5. 5 has a lot of good stuff going on don’t get me wrong but it doesn’t hit the soundtrack or the feeling quite like the other games did. As James May says, FH4 gave me the fizz just like 1 and 2 did and I’m grateful I got to play it in its prime. But I will say the Vipers sounded HORRENDOUS in that game

I started with Fh4 and man it was such an awesome and masterpiece of a journey. There exist a special place in my heart for Fh4. The Spring season is the best I always keep taking neverending photos lol. Fh4 really is the best game for me and I'll keep playing it forever!! Recently I got Fh3 with dlcs for PC and it's looks nice as well.

When this video series ends, we need the same idea but with all the Forza expansions

4's Hospital Records soundtrack is elite, and the entire game is genuinely fun.

We just need something between FH4 and FH5 winter. FH4 always annoyed me when I wanted to tune road cars during winter. But only having snow at the top of the volcano in FH5 is a disappointment IMO. I guess it’s understandable for Mexico though

Man I love Winter season in FH4, take MB or BMW with rear drive and just cruise down the road :D

FH4 nailed it for me. The setting, the seasons, the soundtrack even more than the other games, just brilliant. I keep coming back to this one despite owning FH5. I think this was my favourite one honestly.

For me, this is the one I hardly touched because: I put loads of hours into the previous 3, ESPECIALLY FH3. This game didn’t differ to much from FH3 so I think I was just a bit burned out on the series at the time. IIRC it came out roughly at the same time as RDR2 and BFV which was where I sunk most of my gaming time in that period. I have been thinking of going back to it though, to give it a proper try. I lived in the UK for most of my life.

i still rly adore this game to this day and i’m so glad to see in the comments i’m not the only one who loves it the most out of any of the horizon games

Fh4 was jack of all trades, master of none. It had snow, but worse than Blizzard mountain, it had cities, but worse than FH3, it had more customization, but only for certain cars. You couldn't even change tires on certain cars. it was good, far from great.

3:10 You only miss things when they’re no longer around, and by extension the same applies to people, so show ur fam/friends/significant other some love yall

Yeah. After spending a week in Edinburgh, I’m coming back to FH4 to help ease my Post-Scotland-Depression-Syndrome. Lovely country, and I wish I could stay there forever. The game really does a great job capturing little bite sized chunks of Scotland.

One of my favourite and most played racing games... The season kept me looking forward to each week ... What new challenge i would get ... I would change setups buy cars ... That was what motivated me to keep playing even more

I played FH5 first and when I came to FH4, it blew my mind so much I really questioned the fabric of space-time

My favorite thing about FH4, coming from FH5, is winter. I love snowy roads. They're beautiful.

Loving these retrospectives. Each game had its moments that live on in my memory. Hoping that FH6 will continue the trend.

Wake me up when Hoki makes up his mind on which Forza Horizon is best.

FH4 intro will be the best intro in any racing game for me.

I've only played FH4 & FH5 but one thing I rarely see mentioned when comparing is how much better FH4s soundtrack is. It literally isn't close. I downloaded both together so I know it's not a nostalgia thing, it's just that much better

it was the best for me personally as it was my first and I just remember spending so many hours just driving around with my freinds and completing forzathon live with at least 10 people. Backstage passes were a brilliant feature and made it actually plausible for you to get rare cars, the DLC's were also good. Although not the largest Fortune island had some great roads and the treasure hunt offered an alternative way to make quite a few credits, also it was quite nice to have the uk and recognisable scenery enhanced by the seasons

My favorite in the series, no contest. A blast to play, and those seasons!!

Horizon 4 did it's online servers so much better than 5. You would open the map and find players across the whole thing. You saw where all the hotspots were in real time, and could drive there to find and join those players. It made the game feel populated, and it made it easy to find people at any time. Whatever server-hopping shenanigans they felt the need to add in 5 were totally unnecessary, not to mention they hardly even worked properly.

I need to get back to this game and drive around in the LFA, something about this game makes it feel more a live than Horizon 5

I absolutely loved winter in FH4, it looked beautiful and for me the slippery roads just made it more fun!

I set up an SW20 MR2 on rally tires & race suspension specifically for winter. It made ripping around the map a total blast. I hope we get winter again in the next game. It made racing lower class cars and rally racing even more fun than any other season.

4 is my favourite. A really good map. I maybe in a minority but the Lego expansion was superb. Doing the challenges and building the house kept me busy for months. I enjoyed that so much I reset the house and started it again.

for me horizon 4 was a game that i grew up with throughout high school. I remember first playing it on my xbox one non stop. I have a bias obviously, but the game did bring in life and allowed the ability to explore different options of play style (even if at times it did get overwhelming). Now I moved over to PC and got the ultimate edition on sale and now can satisfy that kid part of me that wanted to play the DLC. The most memorable moment from horizon 4 for me was the rough times in my life where I would just drive on the road and follow other players to de-stress my mind. This game has a community that made it feel alive and lived in.

FH4 is my favorite but I've never played 1 & 2. My wife and I took a trip to the UK a few years back specifically because I liked what I saw in this game. We weren't disappointed. The lake district and Ambleside were wonderful, Edinburgh was fun, seeing Bamburgh castle in person was cool, and I had more fun driving in the Cotswalds than I had in the unrestricted speed sections of Germany (exception being Nurburgring). I thought FH4 was great, but like all the other FH games the roads should be narrower. It would make the digital locales more like their real life counterparts and the sense of speed more realistic.

I loved the snow i go back on horizon 4 to drive in the snow when its winter

great vid i loved this

I feel like even though FH5's graphics are technically more advanced, FH4's world is just so much prettier to look at and feels more realistic to me

FH4 was my first forza and I think best. The seasons are the thing that makes it better than other FH´s. And driving in E class combi in winter is just so good

Who’d have thought it would turn out to be much loved? I remember NOTHING but criticism for FH4. Literally nothing but. I loved it, although the car sounds were dreadful. But the snowy season, with the cool snowy roads in the northwest, is much missed for me. The handling on snow was unique, just unique, and the people who whined about it are the reason we can’t have nice things.

One of the things I loved the most is that Edinburgh felt so familiar to me. I live in the US mid-south, a pretty temperate area pretty similar to what's displayed in-game, snow in the winter, stormy springs, the whole deal. Driving around the Edinburgh countryside just felt natural, whether I was cruising or hauling tail, it just felt right with the rolling hills, fields, and farms. I also do alot of quad riding in back country trails so taking one of the side by sides around the quarry area or anywhere else was, once again, a straight shot a nostalgia. I could never get tired of where I live (Except mosquitoes, ticks, and the humidity) or lived in feeling FH4's world. FH5 just feels so dead and unfamiliar, its no coincidence I spend most of my time in the northern canyon region of the map.

I live in a place that this map features so of course i love it! I also think it has the most technical roads. Doesnt carry the wow factor that 3 did but its still my favourite or a close battle with 2... winter can be a struggle sometimes

fh4 was my first xbox game, my first horizon game, and my favorite car game yet.

I love the winter setting

It felt more like a staycation to me. If only they were able to keep the walking NPCs of FH3 and the beautiful skyboxes. Oh well.

ngl, i feel like we disliked winter because that's where playground would put some of the really cool (as in fast and (or) grippy) cars/vehicles, and typically they wouldn't be ideal for winter for example, i think i remember the jesko being obtained during a winter season when it first dropped

FH4 is not my fovorite horizon to play, but it is my favorite game in the series. I lived in another country for most of the game's life and playing online was how i stayed connected with my dad and friends back home.

I liked 4, the biggest thing I would say that brought it down was the lego expansion. the racetrack it had *almost* being brooklands was cool, but how much cooler would it have been if it was just the real brooklands but fixed up in the digital world so we could drive it. The lack of a lot of british car culture was quite sad too, some genuinely great and important things missing that still exist in their little niches in the uk, and the fact that the company that made the game is british kinda removes a lot of excuses they may have. And the roads are so wide that completely ruined the map, and the highlands is represented by 1 hill with 1 road that goes around it entirely. those are kind of important. you should feel like you are on the edge while driving british country roads, even in a stock hatchback, they are so narrow that a widebody aventador would fill the road entirely. imagine if they made a map in japan and the touge roads were 8 cars wide and didnt have hairpins or switchbacks? you might say "that defeats the entire appeal of the touges in japan", well thats the same thing with british country roads. the final complaint is that the horizon story "british racing green" I think it was called? the purpose of which was to teach about the british car culture and some key cars in it, well, it just got a bunch of stuff blatantly wrong, which again, cant really be excused.

lol i hear songs from Horizon Pulse on the grocery store playlist, instantly think of driving in horizon 4 lol

Honestly the map is still one of the best in the series! I like that it is a bit understated.

I think you should've talked about the drift road in treasure Island map. It was awesome and still full of players. On the other hand one downside of dh4 is bad online connection.

I hope they bring the ranked online back in FH6

6 years later, and im finally gonna buy fh4!!

I just miss snow.

If there ever was a "Hot-take" this would be it.

Epic video ! (:

I didnt expect the forzathon live feature to get praise. Everytime I tried forzathon live there were maybe 2 or 3 other people and those most of the time didnt get anything done and I had to gather almost all points by myself which depending on the task rarely succeeded.

What i truly miss from fh4 was the psuedo endgame castles that served as a goal for a good part of the game for me

whenever this done i would really like to see a supercut video of all videos put together, thanks in advance

I feel like fh3 was the best/most fun to me because I didn’t try to maximize everything, but be happy to grind for 1 or 2 cars then be good with it. From fh4 and now to fh5 it’s just so easy that within a couple of days I feel like I’ve done everything I’d wanted to do in the game(and may come back whenever there is a new cool car added)

I’ve been playing since the first forza Motorsport back on the original Xbox. To me FH1 was inside giving us night and off-road racing for the first time, and FH2 was where you could enjoy the natural beauty of the cars and landscape in Europe, plus that intro can’t be beat, I will die on this his. FH3 to me was perfection especially with all of the expansions, snow and hot wheels. The world felt alive, diverse from rainforests to deserts, you could build up the outposts, snowy mountains whenever you wanted, not to mention the hot wheels track. FH4 felt like a lot of quality of life improvements but a let down in map design targeting track toys, drifters, and super cars making the map feel incredibly small and restrictive in my eyes

FH4 is my favorite by a long run, i just so much love the map. I dont know why but i just do, i just feel like in big Top Gear sandbox when playing, and i still do to this date!

this is obviously biased but I think I speak on behalf of the uk gamers, A massive charm of the game is just the setting. The Uk in general but particularly modern uk is almost never seen in games. Infact i cant think of any apart from fh4. Driving around places iv actually been and driving roads and motorways that feel like real life is astonishing

My BIGGEST problem with FH4s Season was how short they were and unrelated to the outside world. When it’s the middle of June and 95° outside I definitely don’t want to play in the snow. No different than if it’s the middle of winter outside and snowing I don’t want to play in a bright sunny world Short seasons also gave no incentive to get used to the season rather than just ignore it for a week

I kind of miss the ranked feature from FH4, but it was a pain in the ass to do the initial 30 (10x3 I think) qualifying races. After that I did enjoy just doing one qualifying race and then getting the generous amounts of rewards each season though :D I also miss the businesses, but the pay was so low, that it almost didn't matter. I think they could have expanded on that in FH5.

A few friends of mine are working on a project called project fxa which will be a recreation of forza horizon 4s map in assetto corsa

FH4 with FH5 n FH3 car list would be sick i would also like a highway like FH2 maybe call it Horizon Remastered

I liked the winter season, my only complaint about it is there wasnt enough snow, it felt like there was only a small layer from a flurry and i wanted to see snow deep enough that you had to use a truck. But the online was pretty bad, i remember for like 6 months none of my friends or me on pc could play the game online at all. The pvp was ok just the team only racing at the start of the game made it annoying to play.

Definitely my most played Horizon! I was playing it daily between FH3 and FH5. I couldn't even finish FH5 campaign, harsh to say but it felt like an FH4 DLC...

The weekly playlist sucks for the sole reason that it's the primary way to get like half the cars in the game. You can't buy any Toyotas outside the auction house, so you have to wait for them to randomly show up in the festival playlist, which means you have to constantly be checking. And the playlists usually feature the same cars over and over, which I guess is good for the people that missed them, but not actually good for trying to get different cars the game arbitrarily locks from you. Pretty sure the LFA is in Horizon 4 and I still don't own one of my favorite cars in the game because it's locked behind random weekly challenges.

I liked 4 better than 5 & 3, even though everyone seems to say 3 is the best. But for me, 2 will always be the best, it was my first and I loved the map & roads. Wish I could play unlocked framerate on PC, but anyway, 30fps xbox one x, 4k glory hole good enuf.

I actually did not know they delisted Horizon 3. I was looking for it the other day thinking that they'd bump the price down because of how old it is but eventually just got Horizon 4 instead

You forgot to mention the destructible stone walls introduced in FH4 - was a major development! ;) As a UK-dweller I can confirm they nailed the look and lighting authentic to UK in each of it's seasons - was impressed with their recreation of Edinburgh city - but - for me being literally 'at home' I think it lacked that exotic holiday get-away destination feel that FH 1, 2 & 3 had. Coming from FH3 which I played-to-death (loved the map, location, everything) FH4 somehow ended up feeling a bit bland and boring all too quickly - after completing all the races/events I lost interest in playing it much sooner than previous Horizons. Maybe partly was the UK map design? perhaps the car sounds/handling-feel lacking a little? repetition of the same game format? - hard to put a finger on precisely. All that said - I am now enjoying revisiting FH4 from time-to-time - fully snow-covered map-white-out in the winter season is a novelty we're now 'missing' in FH5, for better or worse. They've SO gotta do Japan for FH6 (for a number of reasons). Be perfect for greater contrast of seasons again - lots of snow in winter (maybe graduated between the north and south of map?), cherry blossoms in spring, lush greens and heat in summer, colourful maple trees in autumn...?

FH2 and FH4 were the best! I was in middle school when FH2 came out and senior year high school when FH4 came out. Good times!

I love both horizons but I only like FH5 more because finally there's a FH with right hand road drive instead of left... from portugal it confuses me all the time (i only played fh3 4 5)

my and my friends played so much of this together, in my opinion forza horizon peaked here