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The Xbox One game is locked at 60 frames per second and a 1080p resolution, conveying a level of clarity, lighting quality and polished material detail that I have not yet seen in a console racing game.

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Forza 5 is beautiful, sure, with a stunning, light-filled world of engines and tire smoke. But with the introduction of aggressive, convincing AI that makes every offline race feel like a multiplayer competition, Turn 10 has charted a course for the future of the series — and created the Xbox One's first must-own game.

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Forget racers. This is one of the best looking videogames I've ever laid eyes on.

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Forza 5 is a game defined not by its options, but by the absence of them.

Forget the longed-for dynamic weather and night racing: on the way to the new generation, Forza has lost some 300 cars, over 20 locations and countless tracks, gaining versions of Spa-Francorchamps, Mount Panorama, Yas Marina and the city of Prague by way of small compensation. And by losing tracks, Forza loses the variety of racing that made it great. Without Fujimi Kaido, there is no touge racing; without drag strips, there can be no drag racing; with only one oval, there is no real Daytona; without the Nürburgring, there is no iconic endurance race; and without the beautiful Camino Viejo De Montserrat, there is no joy.

Montserrat was the showpiece of Forza 3 – the moment sim racing stopped being po-faced – and losing it is endemic of a step back to the days when Forza had no car clubs where friends could share their hard-earned vehicles, where the UI was lumpen and slow, and where a sliver of content was stretched to breaking point and beyond. Forza 5’s 200 cars and 14 tracks make for a substantial package, but are limited enough that the game abandons the notion of offering free cars as awards, simply doling out credits instead. UI transitions are glacial and the Top Gear cutscenes unskippable, as if length were a substitute for Forza’s usual breadth.

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There is a menu option for the Forza Marketplace, but it hasn’t yet been activated; presumably it’s still being tested prior to launch. It’s one of the countless features Forza players ordinarily expect that we’ve lost on the way to Xbox One. A quick list? There’s no way to sell unused cars back to the AI or to other players, no bespoke onscreen speedometers, no test driving a car before purchase, no kid-friendly Kinect steering or Kinect support in Forzavista, no opportunity to load a circuit-specific tuning setup before a career race, no exiting from a race series without loading up the next track, no unicorn cars, no ‘reasonably priced car’, no auction house, no storefront, and no surprise, really. Forza 5 is a launch game with all the spectacle and disappointment we’ve come to expect from launch games. While the handling is still magic and the content on offer is substantial in a way, Forza 5 is best seen as a foundation for what Forza 6 will be in a couple of years. By comparison, this launch-day sampler will seem awfully limited, far from the hoped-for victory lap impossible on prior hardware. After all, it seems limited by comparison with Forza 4 now.

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