Summary
While it’s still unknown when the next entry in theForza Horizonfranchise will be released, if and when it does arrive it should learn one key lesson fromForza Motorsport. The former franchise has always excelled at delivering graphically lush open worlds for players to race through, but the latter raised the bar for detailed car models with its most recent release. Even as it seeks to break new ground with its long-running series, developer Playground Games should ensure that cars inthe nextForza Horizonare equally as detailed as theirMotorsportcounterparts.
No one could accuse Playground Games of slouching when it comes to thecars inForza Horizon 5, with the game featuring some stunning recreations of both real-world and fictional vehicles. But, with its revamped lighting system and impressive effects for representing wear and weathering,Forza Motorsporthas arguably managed to edge it out when it comes to the quality of its car models. By giving the nextForza Horizon’s cars the same level of detail as the franchise’s always-impressive environments, Playground Games can matchForza Motorsport’s graphical fidelity and better reflect the rough racing the open-world series is known for.
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Forza Motorsports’ Engine Improvements Would Pair Well With the Next Forza Horizon
Developer Turn 10 Studios has little room to run wild with environmental design inForza Motorsportgiven the constraints of the sim racing genre, which may explain why so much effort was focused on making the cars look spectacular. Even though thetracks inForza Motorsportcan sometimes look nearly identical to the real-world locations, it’s the cars racing through their turns that really steal the show. While the geometric complexity of each in-game vehicle doesn’t appear to have been drastically increased compared to the cars inForza Horizon 5, new lighting and rendering techniques make the machines inMotorsportlook decidedly more lifelike.
The crisply rendered cars seen in Turn 10 Studios’ sim racer are largely a result of improvements made to the ForzaTech engine that powers both theHorizonandMotorsportfranchise’s recent entries.Forza Motorsport’s light-reactive shaderslet cars accurately reflect the game’s ray-traced lighting, while improvements to how paint is portrayed mean they look realistic whether they’re caked in dirt or fresh off the showroom floor. These improvements would work well with the gorgeous, open-world environments that have become a hallmark of theForza Horizonfranchise. They’d also allow its next entry to accurately reflect the accumulated damage, dirt, and debris from the game’s offroad racing.
The same engine improvements that allowForza Motorsportto realistically reflect the way light plays off of cars and other surfaces could also let the nextForza Horizonhave the series’ most impressive damage system to date. While the franchise has always portrayed car damage in one form or another, even head-oncrashes inForza Horizon 5leave little more than dings and dents on the vehicles involved. This is whyForza Motorsport’s more robust vehicle damage system would be a good fit for the often rough and wild racing found in its sister series.
One ofForza Motorsport’s most impressive featuresis the way the game renders the damage, dirt, and debris that accumulate on each car during a race. Contextual damage dings and dents cars in the areas they’ve been hit, even causing paint to chip and scratch realistically after a collision. Combined with the ForzaTech engine’s ability to realistically build up dirt and grime on a car’s surface over time, these engine improvements would be a perfect pairing with the offroad racing that features heavily in theForza Horizonfranchise.
By giving the cars in the nextForza Horizonthe same stunning level of detail as theirForza Motorsportcounterparts, the open-world franchise would have its most visually impressive outing yet. It could even lead to the realistically rendered rides stealing the show from the nextForza Horizon’s assuredly stunning setting.
Forza Motorsportis available for PC and Xbox Series X/S
