Forza Motorsport review: The definitive racing experience

For the last decade, the Forza Motorsport series has found itself in a tricky spot due to being slightly overshadowed by the sibling rivalry of the Horizon spin-offs. Sure, Forza 5, 6, and 7 all offered a sublime blend of an arcade and simulator racing experience on Xbox platforms. However, at the same time, the Horizon series had just as many cars, but also let you hoon them through the British countryside, or yeet them off of Mexican waterfalls.

Unless you’re a serious motorhead, it’s tricky to see what the Forza Motorsport series can offer that the Horizon games don’t make more fun. It’s perhaps for the best, then, that the team at Turn 10 studios has taken over five years off from the Motorsport series, as the soft reboot with Forza Motorsport shows that the series is still very much capable of being a level-headed, hardcore racing simulator - setting a new standard for the definitive racing experience.

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Turning a corner

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If you’ve played any racing simulation game of the last decade, then you’ll likely be familiar with how the Forza Motorsport career mode works. You’re given an entry-level car and tasked with placing as high as possible in a championship series of events.

Placing highly in each event earns you currency to unlock new cars, as well as points to upgrade cars as you see fit. Completing championships progressively unlocks new ones, each with a new theme of cars to race. It’s all very familiar territory, but Forza Motorsport puts its own spin on things to keep it interesting.

Instead of just hopping blindly into each event, you’re forced to complete at least three laps of a practice session. This encourages you to get to know both the track and the car, figuring out the braking and acceleration points for each corner. Visibly timed sections further encourage you to chain together a professional racing line, with a graded point system praising players for good manoeuvres.

What’s more, Forza Motorsport further encourages players to challenge themselves with a Risk Vs Reward system, where they can choose where they want to begin each race on the starting grid. Feeling confident in your overtaking abilities? Starting at the back of the pack will increase the winning bonus if you place in the top three. Alternatively, you can start much nearer the front if you want to work on your defending skills.

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Unbridled fun

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Ultimately, Forza Motorsport borrows from the Horizon series in that it is simply unbridled fun. At any point while playing this racer, there is very little getting in the way of letting you do whatever you like. If you’re the sort of driver who likes to take things super seriously, connect up a wheel and pedals and let rip without any assists, there’s scope for that.

On the other hand, if you just want to go zoom around iconic tracks in some of the fastest cars in the world, not having to worry about tyre wear, fuel consumption or ABS, then that’s completely viable too - and the game won’t punish you for it.

The same design philosophy is continued into the customisation and tuning of cars. As you’d expect, it’s possible to completely tweak the internals of each of your cars to your desire, each change eeking out just a little more power, a little more corner capability, a little more braking efficiency.

Alternatively, Forza Motorsport literally has a one-button prompt that automatically assigns your currency to purchase the best, most balanced upgrades that you could make to each car. If you’re a complete casual who just wants to get on with the race, this is a perfect way of including those players without forcing them to engage with systems they rather wouldn’t.

Turn 10 seems to understand that racing games can still be eccentric and celebrate what makes motorsport so great without forcing the player to watch a 10-minute cutscene of its rich history at every corner. Nor does Motorsport force players to grind through tons of races to unlock a single car.

From my experience with the game, it only took a few short races before I was able to start buying new cars to add to my garage. What’s more, if I wanted to try out a car I wasn’t sure about, it could be rented out for a single race for a small fee.

Motorsport comes complete with a full free-play mode, letting players race pretty much any car on any race track at any time of day or weather condition - nothing is locked behind closed doors or a massive grind, giving players almost unadulterated access to its best content from the very start.

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Content galore

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And what a great deal of content there is to experience in Forza Motorsport from Day One. With over 600 vehicles from pretty much every car manufacturer you can think of, you’re not short of choice when it comes to picking a set of wheels.

The same goes for locales to race at, with 20 iconic locations to choose from, each with a smattering of track layouts to keep things interesting - not everyone has time for a full lap of the Nurburgring, hence why the Sprint section is my usual track of choice there. For F1 puritans, there’s also Silverstone, Spa, and Suzuka to keep an eye out for, too.

All of the cars and locations are realised in what might possibly be the best-looking game engine I’ve ever seen brought to life on my PC. With ray tracing enabled, there have been moments where I genuinely could have mistaken some scenes for real life, especially when viewed from within a car’s cockpit. Seeing your own car’s perfect reflection in the bodywork of a car alongside never gets old, and the way that light bends across wet surfaces and through car windscreens is some sort of technical wizardry.

What’s even more impressive is that it all runs extremely smoothly on PC, with several graphics modes available on Xbox Series X and S. Complete with a robust set of compatibility options for the most popular racing wheels on the market, as well as a seriously impressive list of accessibility options, Forza Motorsport could quite easily become a new standard for racing simulator setups.

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The Verdict

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Forza Motorsport is the best kind of racing simulator. It understands that some players sometimes just want to sit down and smash out a few laps in a Bugatti without having to think too hard about it. In the same breath, it’s also capable of letting you challenge yourself to become a better racer and provides a comprehensive number of tools to enable and encourage you to do so.

Presented in a way that is truly player-first, and wrapped up in one of the most fully-fledged packages of cars and tracks I’ve seen for a long while, Forza Motorsport sets a whole new standard for racing games. Whether you’re a casual racing fan or a hardcore motorhead, this should be a permanent install on your Xbox for years to come.

5/5

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by the publisher.