Why Did All These Features Get Cut From Forza Horizon 5? 

I'm still not over the cutting drivertar convoys from FH3. It made just roaming around the map a lot of fun, though personally I don't enjoy the map enough for that anyway.

There's no day where I don't miss FH2's single player themed championships These were so fun and actually made you try new cars and builds

Forzathon Live was honestly so much cooler then Horizon Arcade I used to play Forzathon Live all the time whenever it showed up while now I only played Horizon Arcade to get the associated Accolades

In my opinion, the only reason FH5's Horizon Arcade is so much less popular than FH4's Forzathon Live is because in FH4, you were notified if there was going to be one happening soon, and would be able to have the route set on your map 10 minutes in advance to the forzathon live starting. This is completely missing from FH5 so people don't know if one is happening or not, and so they aren't enticed to make their way to a meet.

18:07 FH3 had the best substitute to businesses IMO. Having your friends be in your lineup, and them getting some revenue from the races their drivatar appeared in, each time they logged in really elevated the social aspect. Also I’m still very bitter that championships, at least offline, were removed after FH3. They added an element of replayability. You could choose up to 10 races in the order you wanted, the car theme (brands, decades, country of origin etc.), the amount of laps each race, their time of day (whether rolling or fixed) and weather conditions.

Another minor touch in FH4 that I missed is that in the same menu that shows you temperature and weather, it also shows you what song is currently playing from what radio station + the songs album art. I missed that feature and I would LOVE to see it in FH5... also, add in a Spotify Radio Station so that we can play our own playlists. Oh yeah, the Horizon Backstage. I remembered it was leaked a while ago for FH5 but I think they scrapped it because I can't find it anywhere. I don't mind it returning from FH4 to FH5, but it does make sense why it is initially not available in FH5 at the moment. We used to vote for two Exclusive cars and people tend to rig the vote in favor for; the car that is OP in Online Racing... or the car that costs the least just for trolls. If they want to bring it back, maybe improve the system, or... how about bypass the voting and select any New Exclusives from Past Series. As I said, I would LOVE to see Backstage return and have it available for ALL of the Horizon Outposts cause there is some obvious spots that you don't often drive to while at that Outpost. There's like; an undercover section next to the Drag Strip on the Horizon Mexico Outpost, the few offroad splits in front of the Music Stage at the Horizon Rush, an offroad path that leads you to the waterfalls at Horizon Wilds, the beach behind Horizon Apex, the gap that is on the side of the Music Stage at Street Scene... yeah... don't ask me about where the Backstage Area could go for Horizon Baja - I have no clue.

Part of the reason seasons don’t have much variation is because in Mexico there really isn’t a lot of change visually, no snow etc, mostly temperature and weather patterns. In game we really don’t feel the temperature which is the big change, they should reduce car power in summer to simulate A/C which you can’t live without in the summer. 🥵

What I miss the most about fh4 is the snow. Winter was my favorite season, and I just don't have anything similar in fh5. I know it wasn't loved by everyone, but I wish we would've gotten a bit more.

Mixing RWD and AWD drift lobbies is the single biggest complaint I have with FH5 Either split the leaderboards or separate them again.

I think the lack of distinction between seasons in FH5 is simply down to the location. Mexico just doesn't get that much of a change in climate year round like the UK does. It was never really going to work, and it was something I was worried about happening as soon as the location was announced. I think the reason FH4 did seasons in the first place was down to the setting as well. The UK isn't really a particularly visually striking setting, so seasons was a great way to give it variety. And of course Playground being based in the UK, they had much more ability to get reference material year round compared to what they had done before. Seasons being in FH5 honestly just feels like it was there as a carry-over feature from the last game. They were afraid to make it seem like they were cutting something big. But it would have been better if they just focused on a single season and tried to realise it as best as they could, like they did in older games. I don't think they would even need to ditch the live service style seasonal update model in the process. There's no reason why new waves of content have to coincide with changes in weather of the game world. It seems like such a waste of development resources too. It must take a huge amount of effort to create four different versions of the entire game world, even if those changes aren't huge. And to do so based on a country half way across the globe too. For something a lot of players don't even notice.

Everything they promised with Forza Horizon 5 made it seem so fun, but honestly the one thing FH5 is missing is lasting fun

As a person who loved snow rally and going for highscore on PR stunts, i believe seasons issue could have be solved for both groups of people. There could have been 4 "lobbies" for each season for freeroam where people would join the specific season lobby they want and enjoy beautiful and colorful seasons, allowing people to do PR stunts without rain or snow constantly ruining any chance to get high score. But at the same time, weekly races/challenges would still have locked seasons

I really hope that if fh6 releases, during winter half of the map should be snowy. They way there’s still dry areas to drive in winter, but there’s still snow to play around in.

Dude, I missed out on FH4, so I had no idea about backstage passes. There's only about 10 cars I'm missing in FH5. They need to bring that back!

I haven’t played in about a year so it’s interesting to see the contrast between the Horizon games without the recency bias. Thanks for this!

I for one LOVED driving in winter in FH4. That added "challenge" could be mitigated with snow tires, and frankly it felt cool driving a hypercar on snow tires.

Missed the trams from Edinburgh FH4 and wish they could have more rail tracks + locomotives plying the rail lines.

spec rivals was one of the best features in fh4 for rivals players like myself, the popular spec rivals are still more popular than the most popular fh5 rivals with top players. fh4 often gets more new records from the absolute best than fh5 does, a lot of these coming from spec rivals

I really had more fun in FH4, FH5 seems more of a chore every week, because playing online against meta cars is pretty boring, and many things appear to be FH4 with extra steps (waiting for launching some older cars and all that)

The big problem with the evolving world is that most of these things that pg games added only stayed for 1 month not longer

After FH3 and FH4 I instantly missed having beauty spots as these were awesome to make some great screenshots

They could atleast add a leaderboard for the amount of Horizon Open wins youve earned in each series and give players rewards for some milestones for example 1. win = 50k credits 5. wins = a not yet returned car from the festival playlist 10. wins = more cash or sum you get the idea. combine this with a leaderboard and we would get some competition without having to add a Elo System. Maybe even do this with all the different modes that are available in Horizon Open Great video as always 🚗

Honestly they should do away with accolades moving forward. It was a botched system in the FH4 lego dlc. And as a completionist, being forced to do a part of the game I already dislike made me stop playing altogether. Battle Royales will simply never be fun for certain people.

I'm playing Forza Horizon 4 right now. Bought the ultimate edition last steam summer sale for cheap. I'm loving it coming from FH5.

I would imagine the Backstage Pass, or an equivalent feature for getting playlist-exclusive cars, would most likely be held until we're near the end of receiving new content updates and support begins winding down. Until then, those cars will remain exclusive in order to keep the weekly player participation up.

I think houses being scaled down in fh5 and there are no houses or barns in the expansions shows these features could be on their way out. the most expensive house in fh5 are nothing compared to the castles in fh4 where actual rewards were hidden behind them e.g. the barn find rumour

I think the only issue I had with seasons in FH4 was that the requirements for seasonal playlist stunts were the same in the winter as they would have been in summer season, with no adjustment for weather (as far as I could tell). This encouraged using meta builds for them, and then people would start using those same builds for races.

I still believe they removed ranked because they did not know how to properly fix the points system (getting negative points for winning all races in a lobby etc) and just opted for the easier way out by removing the feature entirely. Same with the split times. If you fell too far behind, like really reeeaaally far, the split times would not be accurate anymore and instead of fixing the issue for FH5 they took away the split times

One feature I'd like them to bring back that got cut after FH3 is championships. FH4 and FH5 both suffer from not having enough SP content.

21:30 also the song listing in the pause menu! I really wished that had come back

Fh3 had better features that have been removed for seemingly no reason. Single player championships unlocked after doing the exhibitions for each race route in the game. The final showdowns in street races, bucket lists, the festival upgrade system which would also give you cars at discounted prices after you went up a festival lvl, or just by opening the new site, also can't forget the driver lineups which made more fans, money and rep, based on who was in your line up, drivatar convoys which if you got the max convoy size, would increase your skill chains and xp bonuses. we had those rivals challenges in fh3, with the classed rivals. Also the championships and exhibitions on fh3 hotwheels and blizzard mountain had challenges to do while in the races. The maps where also split better and had more little towns/parking lots scattered around which made the roleplay experience way better. Fh5 and fh4 just dont have that. The clubs were also better in fh3

I entered the Forza community with FH5, so I didn't know basically any of the features listed here. But HOLY MOLY what I wouldn't give to have that backstage feature back! Just today I purchased the last expensive car from the Autoshow and the only cars I'm missing are paid DLCs and about 20 cars from previous seasonal rewards, like the Lotus Carlton, Plymouth Fury, '22 GR86 and others. And sniping them from the auction house is borderline impossible, some of them are basically never being sold.

I miss the DJ from the classical channel. He was good comedic value.

Team Champs is quite honestly a core feature for Horizon. Never should have cut it

Fun fact: TeamWars was actually born from Ranked Team Adventure teams racing eachother

Rivals challenge and team racing is all I miss. And I'm in the camp is that I want as little grind as possible, super easy way to unlock cars and fast loading times, free fast travel too.

A lot of these removals are why I ended up not playing FH5 for more than 2-3 months

In my opinion, the best Forza Horizon they've made so far was 3

The feature I miss the most is From FH 3. Does anyone remember creating your own championships that other players can play?

I love your idea about the themed-car-meet arcade modes.

I miss the snow, I had the perfect car for rally in the snow and it was so fun in fh4. Playing fh5 is fun but not the same. When it comes to the credits, I work a lot (inside and outside of my career) so I don't get much time to even hop on my Xbox. But I also typically stick to a few select vehicles as well. I could see why folks would want something with less grind because people like me simply don't have the time for it. With that being said I can appreciate the desire to grind for credits.

Great vid as always. Hopefully TDUSC will make a good job on social features when it comes out.

21:27 also the pause menu showed the current radio station and song playing, along with the cover i miss this very basic yet immersive feature in FH5 😢 now, to know which song is playing you have to change the station

Excellent video. Think I'm going to have to go back and play FH4 some more.

my favorite small feature in fh4 was the weather and temperature when you opened the pause menu, it was cool to me

I pretty much agree on everything that was mentioned. but there is one thing Im surprised wasnt brought up, Delta times in races. the feature is somewhat in FH5 with a few of the story modes. but it really has to be implemented throught the whole title. would be nice to see where to imrpove your times on laps like Rivals or custom races / hence Team wars and Race Haven. ( I know there is Sim hub but not all players can use it )

the forzathon live thing is definitely what i miss the most. while it was annoying sometimes to get the prompt for it when you wanted to do something else (or worse in photomode where the message would just get an error after 30s and be stuck on screen) I cant remember the last time where i played horizon arcade with more than like 1 other person if any. And at that point i basically also stopped doing arcade regulary. In FH4 it always felt like such a nice community thing to gather at the horizon live starting point and have a little car meet and greet with other people before the event started

i think its funny that so many of these are about multiplayer; i have over 300 hours in fh5 and havent played a multiplayer event once other than the occasional rivals or horizon arcade just for rewards

the group i'm part of used the beauty spots as landmarks for doing "rally" style convoys just driving around the map going between spots

I miss autumn and trees painted in autumn colors😢😢

I agree with it needed the backstage back to help with getitng the cars you missed.

Very good summarization.. last week I was playing H4 again and I LOVED the seasons.. until it went to winter. I still love it, the looks, the feels, but after 3 days snow I had enough. Maybe a faster switch would have been a good solution. And man, I love your videos. Just discovered your channel. Keep it up! CA in your next one

ngl its kinda sad that the changes to online drifting werent even mentioned. it also reflects how pgg views drifting, completely forgotten and on the bottom of the priority list the few changes they made basically killed the gamemode. They lowered the timer so much that you cant do two laps of playa azul with a rwd car. they removed the segregation of drivetrains, so now everyone just uses awd if they want to be competitive they removed b and s2, which heavily limited the upper bound of drift cars you can use the added smoke trails that you cannot turn off make the entire track impossible to see

The seasons thing is difficult to do in a Land where you dont have a dramtic distiction between the seasons like mexico or any tropical Country would suffer this problem. Still you could just split the seasons into 2 ( rainy/ dry) and make them last longer and have diffrent stages where, once the season starts it slowly transitions to the dry or rain and the events change accordingly. And instead of removing the events, because of the longer seasons, you could still do them but with diffrent or more events.

I would love this same video going over the older games as well

So many little touches - I miss somone (anyone) saying ANYTHING each time you begin a tournament. UI missing touch of the weather is also missing the "now playing" space opposite it. Really liked that lil touch. And the "Now Playing" section opposite current weather in UI.

I admit that sometimes i miss the Winter Season, i used to hate it in FH4..... It was fun to see the rammers blow their cars in the first tree at Winter or very Rainy races.

All great points mentioned in this video. All this criteria IMO should be openly discussed and mentioned on FH5 Suggestions Hub.

There was also a seperate section to buy cars that were special and not in the showroom. Made it so easier to see what u have missed and how much they go for.

I skipped a decade gaming, but FH4 brought me back with its beautiful constantly changing scenery with the seasons and new challenges with changing driving conditions. I had cars for each season and just roaming around in the open world was a treat in itself, I rarely used fast travel. The Mexico map is just so bland I always fast travel everywhere - but I guess in Mexico the environment doesn't really change that much anyway.

One feature I miss is from horizon 4 where when you paused the game the radio would still play in the background it was nice, I miss seasons so much I loved winter and seeing the world change so much every week was lovely

I miss so much the vibe and endless content on FH4

Dude I love your contents and bass voice english. Its good to learning english though in parallel with getting interesting opinion and info. Btw, what wheel angle do you use in fh5?

free-roam rush could have worked if it was its own standalone event type (like road, cc and rally events being standalone event types) that players could choose to go and do. as there is a lot of potential in it. there could have been a random start point followed by a random finish point miles away, bring in a test of map knowledge and tactical decisions by the player, like do try to cut thorough a forest or just stay on the road.

As someone who's first game was 5 and then got 4 later, I like the beauty spots. However, perhaps in 5 (or even 6 potentially), they could give you some kind of special reward for doing each one. Credits? Forzathon points? A coupon to redeem a car of your choice in the autoshow? Some type of currency would be neat (and of course I bet each would have its own accolade). Another feature I'd like to see return is the upgradable festival outposts from 3. As a casual player, it really motivated me to do almost everything on the map to see what upgrade I would unlock next (a new festival outpost, a showcase, an outpost upgrade, etc)

My favorite feature was the pop up co-op/pvp races. It was the easiest way to get other random people to play a custom race with you without them being in a convoy.

I wish they would add some incentive to actually try in the monthly rivals. If they bring back back stage, that would be a perfect spot for maybe the top 5% or 10% would get a pass at the end of the month in addition to the rewards you would get during each season. And hopefully even better rewards for top 1%, 0.5%, and 1st 2nd 3rd place on the board (definitely needs some way to review for cheated times). or even just a tshirt with the month/year/percentage or place with the car and maybe the track outline on the back or something. I want more reason to compete when im not looking for a casual drive. Love this comparison and hope turn10 continues to listen like they somewhat have started!

I'd like to make an addition to your comment about the ingame weather "forecast". the small field to the right side of the map that shows your selected radio and the current song was quite a big deal for me personally and I was really bummed out to not see it in fh5. in fact I miss it to this day

hopped on horizon 4 to see how the servers are and i was very happy to see theyre still very much active! around 50-60 people and at least 10 people on almost every forzathon live. Thats something i think none other horizon game will be able to match, the social aspect of horizon 4

Something that's also missing from FH4 (which doesn't make any sense at all), is traffic lights. FH5 has no traffic lights, not one. Even the dragstrip at the festival doesn't have them. FH5's city/town location also has no traffic lights. It feels weird, unreal even. I also didn't like FH5's city much, I preferred Surfers Paradise and Edinburgh over it. The missing traffic lights and the horrible lighting in the tunnels also added to that experience. Another thing I miss in FH5: tunnels on the motorway. It was so much fun to drive through FH4's tunnels on the motorway. The lighting inside it reflected beautifully on the cars and the echo made the engine/exhaust sound much more powerful. Especially in a convertible. It often feels like FH5 focused on better graphics, engine noises but not much else. It removed details, made things easier and less immersive. In FH3 and FH4, it felt good to drive around the map, at moderate pace even, following the ai. In FH5, the map isn't interesting enough for it and the ai feels worse as well. The highway especially, feels mostly empty. (If we compare FH5's highway to FH3 and FH4, FH5's highway is nearly devoid of life.)

I just got a thrustmaster tx racing simulator which has gotten me to play Forza horizon 4 again (I don’t have fh5). One thing that I noticed today which annoys me a little bit (in context) is the fact that you can’t complete a full week’s reward because you don’t have Xbox live gold.

My biggest problem with the game is that it just feels so depressing compared to the previous games. I still love to come back to FH3 and race under the sun in the beautiful location with vibrant colors, it's a totally different experience.

I'm gonna give FH 4 another try after 750+ hours of the sequel. The footage reminded me of all the things I did like about game. The seasonal variation in 4 is way better, even if it does lead me to not play so much during those weeks of snow. It feels like home though! Thank you!

I liked Forzathon in fh4 no mandatory things and it was only once an hour so more participation. Also it was harder. Rewarding if you got it. Only one on the map which brings more players together. I liked the backstage pass aswell. It is awesome hopefully we will get it or something like it in fh5. I liked that the community chose cars. I think one point you didn’t touch is that in fh4 all content was multiplayer/co-op with friends except for rivals which is logical. I didn’t expect so many things in fh5 aren’t playable with friends. The stories the exhibition. I don’t get it. Hopefully you could make a full video about this maybe pitch it to playground games?

13:45 One of my favorite things to do is build classed rival time attack cars, especially with the new Slick tires added. I do wish there was an X-Class rival category, as broken as it would be for leaderboards . I can never drive my true fastest cars without drivatars around. Thanks FM8 for taking 6 years to come out… lol

I would've loved the cross-country sprints between tour races to have some sort of reward or consequence - whether it's Forza points, cash, maybe a dedicated accolade or badge, or even grid position for the next race.

Damn there where so many features and i forgot almost all of them. We need some of them back

I remember FH3's version of freeroam rush being skill point based. I remember this because one day I decided to do it with a Volvo wagon I turned into a drift car. I was consistently near the back in the races, but I still won because I drifted the whole time. I think the skills also made a difference in races

More of this please!

I completely forgot about the weather thing that was so nice

I have an idea for team races in FH5: You could mandate that each team sticks to a colour. For example, team one could only use red liveries and team two could only use blue liveries. This way you could tell which team is doing better whilst in the race. 🧐

At peak times fh4 rffa had full lobbies with people between rank 5 and Grandmaster and the variaty of cars is as big as in fh5 but most players dont know to rwd or fwd and were only driving the easy and fast awd cars

Freeroam Rush is the only thing that I miss from previous entries. I had so much fun with that especially in Forza Horizon 3 and I was so freaking mad when they removed it in FH5. It was the best features that previous games had and now they decided to cut it out...

As for the seasons the what the game actually fails to do is give appropriate missions and PRs, i either love or hate winter depending on the missions

Imagine not playing in the winter. It was my favorite season other than fall.

Forza Hub !!! Free Credits for being a Veteran and just getting achievements and spending time in the different Forza games was neat. It often didn't work right and didn't track progress properly and then suddenly 3 months later the stats were all updated at once, but just killing it off without replacement was BLEH. I've been playing on and off since Forza Motorsport 2 on the 360... i had quite some points racked up in that System and i feel sad its gone poof. I definitely don't miss the constant rain in the UK where you had 3 seaons of none stop rain and then one where you install snow tires on every car you want to take out ... only for then join a multiplayer mode where it suddenly is summer again and you show up with the wrong tires ARGH. Seasons are a neat idea, but don't make me change tires for it. Especially if that throws the entire PI score of the tune out the window. As for the Soundtrack, the last that had some decent tracks was FH3. FH4 + FH5 soundtrack feels like somebody intentionally chooses the most cringe and annoying refrains, no matter what radio station i turn on within half an hour its stuck on some CRINGE AF track with a annoying as hell refrain that repreats itsel over and over with vocalists that have voices that make me want to stab my ears with needles so it just STOPS. Doesn't matter if its the Rock, the new Punk or any of the other channels... i always end up turning it OFF eventually and fire up my own playlist ...or more likely just mute the game entirely and AFK game while i watch some youtube on the other screen yapping my ears off. Either i'm getting old and new music is just crap, or they intentionally want to torture their audience with this attack on the senses. And somehow the game insists on playing the one song that i change the channel on every time i tune into that channel. It's like there is some algorithm that knows which tracks i hate and makes sure to play those the most.

I'm actually ok with Horizon Arcade. It is nice being able to complete the challenge by myself once the scores were adjusted depending upon the number of participants.

The seasons really make me sad in FH5. I get it, its a different climate zone, but it brought so much to the game... it was fantastic. I wouldnt say it was due to player feedback that it was scaled back in FH5. I think it was traded for "Dynamic" weather.

This might sound dumb but I feel we could use the abilty to create our own drift zone anywhere we feel like and share it, this'd be sick imo.

I miss the season changes in FH4. Doing the X Country and Dirt races in the snow was fun.

Winter was one of my absolute favourite parts of FH4! Even If I didn't have much time, I always made sure to try to login while it was winter, it was so beautiful, fun to drive, challenging, great for photos, and the feeling I got from it was amazing. I love driving in snow and winter in real life too. There was amazing winters when I was a kid and moved to a place where there was never snow, so I have great nostalgia for it. I wish there were more snowy area in FH5, of course it's Mexico, so not too snowy irl , but iIf they could at least transform the underutilised stadium into a snowy escape at least for the winter period it would be amazing, some nice curvy undulating snowy roads, with some hills, trees, maybe some jumps etc, a small frozen lake etc, it would be awesome! Even if they used the same map for it every winter, it would make it a great addition :D

Good List - love FH5 as eventlab builder / creator; wished we had more props, and for the Maps / worlds to be bigger. Another wish is for more zany vehicles; more trucks, perhaps commercial trucks with loads / buses, tractors added, maybe caravan couplings to cars; lets add more fun to Horizon.

I remember when they showed off the new 'the tour' mode where u race with players against ai in random car categories, like the trial but not week specific. the devs made a point to say how theres no ranking system, like they were deliberately ignoring the fact that unranked existed. also does fh5 really have more players than fh4 did back then? it honestly feels like it has fewer players

For the people complaining about the seasons and weather: They didn't "scale them back" much at all, they just made them more realistic to the location of the game. It's freakin' Mexico! A mostly warm, tropical and/or arid desert landscape, with urban cities and small rural towns thrown in. It doesn't snow in Mexico like it does in the US, UK, Europe, or basically anywhere else that's not a desert or tropical island with mostly warm weather year-round. The only places it snows in Mexico are in the higher elevation areas, mountains, volcanoes, etc. because that's literally how weather works. As you get higher up in elevation/altitude, the colder it becomes. The colder it becomes, the more that rain and even just moisture in the air turns to snow and ice. There are some areas of northern Mexico that get snow in the winter, but for the most part it just doesn't really snow everywhere there. Even here in the US, there are states/areas of states that get snow, and those that don't. FH5 as a game takes place in the middle part of Mexico, so it doesn't get snow except for in the mountains (or volcano, in this game's case). It still rains a lot in the wet season, so there's that.

Backstage passes were absolutely the least divicine and best feature that was inexplicably cut between 4 and 5. I truly hope they bring it back in Forza Horizon 6, or even shoe-horn it back into 5 late stage.

I loved the 'car shows' in the earlier Horizon games. I used to do the any class head to head races where lower PI's got a head start and would really annoy all the "S1 is too slow to be fun" types. I also really like the hit lap vs mode and played it a lot. Ive tried a little in FH4 and havent played FH5 but I feel like aomething's missing from it. I had quite a few Top 10 times in the D and E classes and a lot of top 1% times in C, B, and A. All with my own "who cares about the meta" cars and tunes. My AWD 70 class b charger with the lowest tires and over 700 hp and rally suspension was an offroad terror. 3 minute races against modern AWD sportscars in gravel would usually end with me leading by 5-10 seconds per minute of racing. It was insane. Off pavement, i never used brakes. Just lift off throttle, point the nose, then slam back on the gas. Bit even between FH1 and FH2, there was a lot lost. For the online adventures or freeroam rush or whatever it was called (that replaced lobbies) you never had to be fast. Just go do donuts between racing and you'll get more victory points than anyone who consistently wins.

Seasons solution.. just let us choose which season to play offline in Solo mode. 😎

I loved freeroam rushes - it was my favourite mode, actually.

bring back the car meet spots! i can't remember if they were in fh3 but they definitely were in fh2. edit: you mentioned it at 15:17 haha! i loved those things.

The ability to see what youre listening to was nice