Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
06-13-23, 02:06 PM
#1
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Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
Thought we should have a thread about this big game, coming Day One to Game Pass. They're changing their focus for this one, making it more of a live service than a biennial update.
Dan Greenawalt, GM of the Forza series, has been working on Motorsport games for two decades, but his remarks in a post-Xbox Showcase briefing on Sunday suggest this next release could be the last in the series. Forza Motorsport is the eighth title in Turn 10 Studios' driving sim franchise, and the first new entry in almost half a decade.
Forza has been one of Microsoft’s most reliable first-party properties. Ignoring Playground Games' spinoff Horizon series, the original Xbox had one Forza title, the Xbox 360 had three, and the Xbox One had three. Barring a few launch hiccups, every title has been well-reviewed and the franchise as a whole has sold millions. We’re now in the third year of this console generation, and there’s been no Motorsport game for fans to play.
A lot’s changed since Forza Motorsport 7 arrived in September 2017. The “day one with Game Pass” paradigm shift started with Sea Of Thieves in 2018, and has since become Microsoft’s entire business model. Now, Microsoft measures success more like a social network (or a tech news publication), focusing on monthly active users and playtime, rather than sales.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Forza Motorsport is set up more like a service game than a traditional AAA title.
While many of the modes that Forza players expect, especially the online multiplayer component, are being reworked and improved, Turn 10 is betting that its new career mode will keep players coming back week after week. At Summer Game Fest, the game’s creative director Chris Esaki talked a group of journalists through this new career-mode loop and the shift in philosophy for the series.
Esaki described Forza Horizon as “a whole new take on falling in love with cars.” We saw a career mode event called the Builders Cup, which began with a narrated showcase of a trio of cars. After picking one to roll with, you then head into “open practice,” where you get to know the car. These sessions are packed full of stats and challenges; you earn Car Experience Points (CXP) for every corner you take, and the closer to perfection you are the more CXP you’ll get. CXP is specific to each car, and is used to upgrade parts and customize vehicle performance.
After open practice, you head into a race, where there’s a new “challenge the grid” system that lets you essentially bet against your racing talent. You choose where on the grid to start and how fast your AI opponents are, with higher rewards as the difficulty scales up. After competing in the race itself, you’ll earn money for new vehicles as well as more of the car-specific CXP. Then it’s onto the next open practice, more tuning and customization, and more races.
Esaki calls this loop “level, build, dominate.” He sees it as a way to get players interested in a broad swathe of cars, rather than having them head straight to a Ferrari or Bugatti. That might sound like the ethos of another popular racing sim, but while there are definitely elements of Gran Turismo 7’s cups and café challenges in here, the Builders Cup feels both more contained and more repeatable. It’s all by design: Similar to recent Forza Horizon games, players can expect a big content update monthly, which then rolls out week-by-week.
We’ll likely hear much more about Forza Motorsport in the lead up to its release on October 10th, and I’m interested to try out the new simulation features, like a massively overhauled physics system and improved opponent AI. For now, though, the pitch seems solid. I’m a huge fan of Gran Turismo 7, but if you don’t enjoy online sim racing and the toxicity that comes with it, its single-player experience is fairly threadbare. In contrast, Turn 10 seems to have developed Forza Motorsport as a game that will last forever, with new experiences every week designed to satiate gamers’ desire for fresh races and Microsoft’s desire for monthly active users.
'Forza Motorsport' wants you to drive forever
This could be the last game in the series.
"Basically, we're not planning a distinct sequel at all."Dan Greenawalt, GM of the Forza series, has been working on Motorsport games for two decades, but his remarks in a post-Xbox Showcase briefing on Sunday suggest this next release could be the last in the series. Forza Motorsport is the eighth title in Turn 10 Studios' driving sim franchise, and the first new entry in almost half a decade.
Forza has been one of Microsoft’s most reliable first-party properties. Ignoring Playground Games' spinoff Horizon series, the original Xbox had one Forza title, the Xbox 360 had three, and the Xbox One had three. Barring a few launch hiccups, every title has been well-reviewed and the franchise as a whole has sold millions. We’re now in the third year of this console generation, and there’s been no Motorsport game for fans to play.
A lot’s changed since Forza Motorsport 7 arrived in September 2017. The “day one with Game Pass” paradigm shift started with Sea Of Thieves in 2018, and has since become Microsoft’s entire business model. Now, Microsoft measures success more like a social network (or a tech news publication), focusing on monthly active users and playtime, rather than sales.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Forza Motorsport is set up more like a service game than a traditional AAA title.
While many of the modes that Forza players expect, especially the online multiplayer component, are being reworked and improved, Turn 10 is betting that its new career mode will keep players coming back week after week. At Summer Game Fest, the game’s creative director Chris Esaki talked a group of journalists through this new career-mode loop and the shift in philosophy for the series.
Esaki described Forza Horizon as “a whole new take on falling in love with cars.” We saw a career mode event called the Builders Cup, which began with a narrated showcase of a trio of cars. After picking one to roll with, you then head into “open practice,” where you get to know the car. These sessions are packed full of stats and challenges; you earn Car Experience Points (CXP) for every corner you take, and the closer to perfection you are the more CXP you’ll get. CXP is specific to each car, and is used to upgrade parts and customize vehicle performance.
After open practice, you head into a race, where there’s a new “challenge the grid” system that lets you essentially bet against your racing talent. You choose where on the grid to start and how fast your AI opponents are, with higher rewards as the difficulty scales up. After competing in the race itself, you’ll earn money for new vehicles as well as more of the car-specific CXP. Then it’s onto the next open practice, more tuning and customization, and more races.
Esaki calls this loop “level, build, dominate.” He sees it as a way to get players interested in a broad swathe of cars, rather than having them head straight to a Ferrari or Bugatti. That might sound like the ethos of another popular racing sim, but while there are definitely elements of Gran Turismo 7’s cups and café challenges in here, the Builders Cup feels both more contained and more repeatable. It’s all by design: Similar to recent Forza Horizon games, players can expect a big content update monthly, which then rolls out week-by-week.
We’ll likely hear much more about Forza Motorsport in the lead up to its release on October 10th, and I’m interested to try out the new simulation features, like a massively overhauled physics system and improved opponent AI. For now, though, the pitch seems solid. I’m a huge fan of Gran Turismo 7, but if you don’t enjoy online sim racing and the toxicity that comes with it, its single-player experience is fairly threadbare. In contrast, Turn 10 seems to have developed Forza Motorsport as a game that will last forever, with new experiences every week designed to satiate gamers’ desire for fresh races and Microsoft’s desire for monthly active users.
06-13-23, 02:38 PM
#4
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06-13-23, 02:44 PM
#5
DVD Talk Godfather & 2020 TOTY Winner
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Re: Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
I did the top line. The rest is You Tube and this article.
Watched the Career Mode demo. While it gets annoying how they keep reusing the words "loop", "level", "build", and "dominate", but I get what they're going for, and I think it's pretty smart. While most players (myself included) would rather just get better cars, the ability to level up your car and tune it easily to your liking is smart -- especially separating the upgrades from the currency required to purchase new vehicles instead.
I'm still going to spring for the Premium Edition upgrade for the VIP Membership and weekly-updated Car Pass. $30 for that seems like a good deal to me, especially since I'm not 'buying' the game. They're not selling it as an upgrade separately yet, but I assume that just like with Horizon 5, they will before launch.
Watched the Career Mode demo. While it gets annoying how they keep reusing the words "loop", "level", "build", and "dominate", but I get what they're going for, and I think it's pretty smart. While most players (myself included) would rather just get better cars, the ability to level up your car and tune it easily to your liking is smart -- especially separating the upgrades from the currency required to purchase new vehicles instead.
I'm still going to spring for the Premium Edition upgrade for the VIP Membership and weekly-updated Car Pass. $30 for that seems like a good deal to me, especially since I'm not 'buying' the game. They're not selling it as an upgrade separately yet, but I assume that just like with Horizon 5, they will before launch.
06-13-23, 05:08 PM
#6
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
Looking forward to trying it out when I do my 3 month free trial I got with the rog ally. Fable will be out by then too.
Last edited by GatorDeb; 06-13-23 at 06:49 PM.
06-14-23, 07:05 AM
#7
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
I'm still going to spring for the Premium Edition upgrade for the VIP Membership and weekly-updated Car Pass. $30 for that seems like a good deal to me, especially since I'm not 'buying' the game. They're not selling it as an upgrade separately yet, but I assume that just like with Horizon 5, they will before launch.
09-21-23, 08:51 AM
#8
DVD Talk Godfather & 2020 TOTY Winner
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Re: Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
Game is now available to pre-load ahead of its early 10/5 launch for Premium pass owners. It's a whopping 130 GB on the XSX.
01-10-24, 05:10 PM
#9
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Re: Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
Oof. Two competitive Forza communities are done with the game, at least for the moment:
The primary issue apparently isn't one that Turn 10 (finally) addressed in a recent statement; it's "a bug that causes desync in private multiplayer lobbies, leading to unnecessary (car) crashes.".
The primary issue apparently isn't one that Turn 10 (finally) addressed in a recent statement; it's "a bug that causes desync in private multiplayer lobbies, leading to unnecessary (car) crashes.".
01-10-24, 11:08 PM
#10
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Re: Forza Motorsport - 10/10/23 (XSX, XSS)
Yeah, that sucks. Those kinds of bugs are not acceptable for any game where competitive communities are meant to thrive.
That said, how big are Racing Haven and Tora? Doing a quick search, it's kind of hard to tell since the focus is mostly on their recent posts. Tora seems to have been around for a few years, but RH seems much newer.
Ultimately, it's a bad look for MS, as it's not like they have memberships in the single digits or anything. It just seems like the Forza competitive community is already pretty small as it is, so these two groups deciding to stop playing just makes that worse. Once a community drops off a game, it's hard/impossible to bring them back.
That said, how big are Racing Haven and Tora? Doing a quick search, it's kind of hard to tell since the focus is mostly on their recent posts. Tora seems to have been around for a few years, but RH seems much newer.
Ultimately, it's a bad look for MS, as it's not like they have memberships in the single digits or anything. It just seems like the Forza competitive community is already pretty small as it is, so these two groups deciding to stop playing just makes that worse. Once a community drops off a game, it's hard/impossible to bring them back.
