This Year’s New Forza Motorsport Game May Be the Last One
Dropping the numbered title, it sounds like the franchise is going the route of an ongoing service game.
A new Forza Motorsport game is scheduled to land later this year, and it sounds like it may be the last game in Xbox's racing sim franchise. Speaking at a post-Xbox Showcase briefing earlier this week as reported by Engadget, series general manager Dan Greenawalt said, "Basically, we're not planning a distinct sequel at all."
Despite what it sounds like, developers are not abandoning or giving up on Forza. Instead, the series is seemingly going the route of a continually updating "service game" to align with Microsoft's Game Pass subscription model. Essentially, the company intends gamers to play a constantly updating Forza Motorsport indefinitely via their Game Pass subscription rather than fork over $70 every couple of years for a new game. This would also explain the absence of a numbered title. This ain't Forza Motorsport 8, it's just Forza Motorsport.
It's been six years since the last Motorsport game and the new one is being billed as a bit of a reboot for the series. In a demo video showcasing how the single-player career mode will work, creative director Chris Esaki explains how the new game will make players "fall in love with cars" via the Builders Cup. It's a series of championships that each highlight a certain genre of car or corner of car culture and players are encouraged to blast through these by building their cars up through mods. New downloadable cars and tracks will be weaved into Builders Cup events over time.
As for technical improvements, this game will feature full, dynamic time of day and weather on every track. The game runs in 4K and 60 fps on the Xbox Series X and features remastered car audio, a new tire physics model, as well as new suspension, weight, and aerodynamics simulations. At launch, it will come with 20 tracks and more than 500 cars.
Forza Motorsport is coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC on Oct. 10.
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