Title – Forza Motorsport
Platforms – Xbox Series X|S and PC
Release Date – October 10th, 2023
Developer – Turn 10
Publisher – Microsoft Games Studios
MSRP – $69.99
ESRB – E for Everyone
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Disclaimer – This product is being reviewed on the PC. A review copy was provided by Microsoft Games Studios for the purpose of this review. Gaming Instincts is an Amazon Affiliate and does gain financial benefits if you choose to purchase this product on this page.
Forza Motorsport has finally returned as a next-gen title only on the PC and Xbox Series X|S. After six years of absence, what does the reboot of Forza Motorsport bring to fans of simulator racing? For those unaware, this franchise is known as the sim racer, which is completely opposite to the arcade-style racing of Playground Games Forza Horizon line. Turn 10 is well known for delivering consistently good racing improvements throughout the franchise’s history. So what does Forza Motorsport do that is different from previous titles? How does it play, and what can it provide to the fans that it hasn’t before? Well, I am here to answer those questions. Welcome to our review of Forza Motorsport.
A Noob’s Entry To Forza Motorsports
First, I would like to note that I have never played a Forza Motorsport title in the past. I have only played the Forza Horizon series, which relies heavily on dumb fun and free roaming opposed to the much more realistic approach in motorsports. I’d rather be transparent instead of pretending like I one-hundred percent know what I am talking about when it comes to sim-racing games. With that said, it would be a bit hard and unfair for me to compare to previous titles in the series. However, I still believe you can find value here and look at this review from the angle of someone who has never played the sim racing side of racing.
I played a wide range of different car games, such as Need For Speed, Midtown Madness, Burnout, and so on. The most important thing I usually find in a racing game is how the cars feel when it comes to driving and handling. Jumping into a sim racer for the first time was daunting, so I played with the default setting. The game would automatically use the breaks during corners, and I wasn’t sure why it was doing that. A few races later, I realized that if you want true control of your car, you have to go into the assist settings and change them to your liking.
So I decided to go into the expert mode, where you get a heavy penalty for going off-track or slamming into cars and causing physical damage that nerfs your car’s components throughout the race. I then turned off break assistance because I didn’t like having the AI take over the breaking for me. After a few races, I got more comfortable and finally understood how to control the cars, how to steer, when to break, and when to turn, and you know what? It felt fantastic. Forza Motorsport did quite a pretty good job introducing someone new to the sim-racing genre at the start and letting them customize the difficulty to their heart’s content.
After roughly two hours, I decided to keep the difficulty at expert, had assist turned off, and put the drivatar difficulty up to the middle. I like that the difficulty system rewards you with extra credits and car points for the car leveling system.
Welcome to the New Era of Forza Motorsport
Now let’s discuss the structure and the “Tours of Motorsports” career mode. In Tours of Motorsports, the player can choose several career tours that are divided into a variety of series with five to six races in each. There is a singular race in the last series of the tour. Each race takes roughly 8-12 minutes or maybe more, depending on how good you are with laps, car upgrades, difficulty, and so on. A whole series will take you roughly 50 to 70 minutes to complete. After you complete the series, you can move on to the next one.
You do this until you complete all the series, and then you can head into a different tour if you wish. It’s worth noting that Forza Motorsport is a live service game and will receive more tours, series, cars, and tracks. This is a new era for the franchise, so do not expect more sequels or anything of the sort until it’s time to reset again. The game out of the box consists of five tours with five series in each and twenty races in each tour, which is one hundred races for the whole career mode. That is quite a bit of content, without including all the free play, time trial with rivals modes, and multiplayer.
If it’s your first time playing, you will start in the Builders Cup Introduction Series, the intro tour to Forza Motorsport. Once you’ve beaten this, you will enter the real career mode with the rest of the tours. Once the player chooses a series and proceeds, they will enter”Practice Mode.” This allows the player to try the race track before the real race begins. In here, you may practice corner turning, when to speed, when not to, and so on. In this mode, the player can also earn experience towards their car.
The practice mode does not bother me, but what I do find very odd is that every time you enter into a new race, you are forced into practice mode. You can only get out of it if you complete three laps or go to the menu, choose “exit” and then choose “Skip Practice.” I did not mind doing practice for the first time, but it’s very time-consuming and annoying to do it every time you enter a new race. Thankfully, you can skip it, but I wish there was an option to skip practice automatically. You also have to jump through mini-cut scenes and loading times. Thankfully, the load times are basically instant.
This strange design decision does not respect the player’s time. After a few hours into the game, I already knew how to turn, when to break, and how to control my car. I don’t care if it’s a track I’ve never done. If worst comes to worst, I can restart the race and try again for a better placement. The game features a rewind system like in Forza Horizon, but it can’t be turned on in expert mode. I know this may seem like it isn’t a big deal, but when the whole game is based on going from race to race and car action, the last thing I want to do is hit a bunch of buttons in a variety of menus to get the race in the first place.
Another mode is the Featured Tour in career mode. About every few weeks, a new series is introduced to the tour. I am assuming this is the game’s version of monthly rotating content to keep players busy alongside the regular multiplayer. Of course, there is the new multiplayer system which is called Featured Multiplayer. In this mode, players can join Spec events or Open events. Spec events give you pre-tuned vehicles that are only allowed in such events. You cannot tune them or change them in any way. These are the more competitive events where everyone is on the same playing field.
Open events are the opposite, where you can take your custom-built and tuned car to compete based on the event’s class type. So, if it is an Open event for D-Class cars, then you can use any Class-D vehicle with whatever tuning and upgrades you have. Some Open events restrict you to a specific vehicle, but they are not locked to specific tuning or upgrades like the Spec events are. The multiplayer is fun and feels competitive. It’s fun to go with your friends, join events, and see what your cars can do.
Last but not least, there is the time attack mode where you can choose AI rivals or friends to race against their ghosts on a variety of tracks too see if you can beat their lap times. And there is the free play mode where you can create which ever rules you wish, how many laps you want, which cars to use and so on. Basically it’s the ultimate custom play mode. You may also share your made up race tracks with its rules with the Forza Motorsport community. Very cool stuff and lots of freedom. With that said, let’s talk about how the actual races work in the single-player career mode.
Right before the race starts, the player is allowed to place themselves on any part of the grid except the two placements at the front. I like to always place myself at the tail end as the 24th racer. Why you might ask? Because the further you place yourself away, the more credits and car points you will receive. High risk and high reward. It’s a great balance of a good challenge where the AI in the lead will give you a good fight for their place, but it’s also not extremely difficult either, basically somewhere in the middle.
I noticed that the AI drivers in the back are not very bright and are extremely easy to pass by despite the drivatar difficulty being somewhere in the middle. Basically, the more cars you overtake, the harder it gets. The AI drivers at the front will always be more challenging and faster than the ones in the back. Those are slow and sometimes make dumb decisions, even going off the tracks. That doesn’t bother me that much. At the end of the day, the last four to six drivers are the ones you will be trying to overtake anyway, and that’s where the actual challenge comes in.
The driving itself feels satisfying, especially when you know you are about to get into first place. Depending on the car you are using, some may have better or worse handling. Some vehicles may have fantastic handling but awful breaking, making it tough to make clean turns, but that’s part of the challenge. You have to learn and feel your car to understand its weaknesses and strengths, and Forza Motorsport does a pretty good job of that.
While we are on the subject of cars, now is a good time to dive more into the car leveling system and how it all works. First, I will discuss how you earn them and then how you can use them in your car collection and game progression. Anytime you overtake an opponent, you gain car points and experience towards leveling your car. Performing cleanly during a turn or segments in the race will also give you experience and car points. Basically, the better you perform, the more you are rewarded, and that’s good. Once the race is finished, your total gets accounted for, and then it tells you what car level you reached, what driver level you have reached, and how many car points and credits you have earned.
The credits buy new cars, but they cannot buy car points. Car points are what you use to buy and install upgrades for your vehicle. Think of them as talent points or something like that from your standard RPG game. Each upgrade costs a variety of points, ranging from just a measly 25 all way the to 1500 or above. The nice thing about them is that once you’ve decided to install an upgrade, you can swap out the upgrade for something else and refund those points. You are never locked or forced to stick to the same build, which is very good. Your car will always be flexible and can be tweaked to your liking for the upcoming race of your choice.
Also, it’s worth noting that each car is treated as its own character. If you played Elden Ring as an example and made a new character, chose your starting class, then that is your car “A” in Forza Motorsports. If you made another character, then that would be your car “B.” Basically, each car has its own levels and its own amount of car points. If you want to have twenty different cars at max level, then you would need to play twenty different characters.
There was one thing I found odd about the leveling system. The leveling doesn’t take super long, and the max level for a car is 50. It will take a couple of hours to level from 1 to 50. But what if you like to experiment and try different cars? You are forced to level another car, and you won’t have any upgrades because you are starting from scratch. I am not sure what the design intent was behind such a thing, but I assume the developers want you to play the game and grind it for as long as possible to rack up playtime.
Even if you want to have ten different cars at their maximum potential, it will take quite a while. The game has 500 or so vehicles. Someone crazy enough might just go ahead and max them all out, but that’s truly for the hardcore individuals, and if you enjoy that, then more power to you. I don’t like the idea of leveling from scratch every time I buy a new vehicle. Maybe the intent was to take the player on a journey with the car and give them more of an emotional attachment as they race with it, level it up, and upgrade it. I have no issues with some sort of progression, but this just seems a tad too much.
Another issue with the car system is that the upgrades for all vehicles are essentially the same, and all unlock at the same levels. I find that quite ridiculous. You are on your fifth car, and a specific upgrade you need for a particular race is locked behind level twenty to make the race a lot easier. Now you are forced to grind in other races to get where you need, just to unlock that one upgrade that’s always hidden behind level twenty. That kind of sounds counter-progressive to me.
Let’s put it like this. If you are a real-life hobbyist who likes to install and tweak your cars and then go on a race track to test them out, are you going to do a certain amount of races before you want to install a new engine? That would not make any sense. If you want a new engine, then you should install it regardless of whether you’ve done a few races or not. Forza Motorsport advertises itself as a sim racer that’s supposed to be very realistic and immersive. Leveling up every single individual car to level twenty to get a specific upgrade is not very realistic or immersive if you ask me. Now, I understand it’s a video game, and there has to be some interesting progression, but this is not it.
What I believe they should have done is made the upgrades based on the class of the car you are driving. If you bought a D-Class car and leveled it to the max level of fifty or something then it should unlock the rest of the upgrades for your future D-Class purchases without making you re-level a car again in that same class tier. But the other side of the coin might make it not grindy enough or not as satisfying to progress. Or, another solution would be to level up at least three cars to a certain point in that same class tier before the upgrades get unlocked for every other car in the same class. This way, you still had to grind a bit, but at least the grind would be fair and worth it because you would never have to worry about not having new upgrades from the start.
That is the leveling progression system in the entirety of Forza Motorsport. I am not sure if this is going to sound correct, but for someone who played a ton of arcade racers, I enjoyed what I played despite the weird design choices of the car-leveling shenanigans. The way the cars feel, look, and handle is quite amazing. Even though they have lower stats at the beginning, the game rewards you for learning each of the cars and mastering them. It just sucks I have to re-level every time I buy a new car, but hopefully, a future update or a solution will eventually come from Turn 10.
One last thing I will mention is that you can tune your vehicle in many different ways. Upgrades are not the only way to re-adjust your vehicle’s strengths and weaknesses. The tuning is quite in-depth, and there is just too much to go over in the review on what you can do tuning-wise. You can also create custom paints for your cars and liveries. Players may also share their actual tune builds, car builds, and cosmetics. There is a ton of customization here that will keep you busy for hours and hours. With that out of the way, let’s discuss the visuals and the audio before getting into the final verdict.
Eye Candy At Its Finest
Playing Forza Motorsport and checking out all the cars and their visuals and beauty is pure elegance and eye candy. The game runs at an unlocked framerate on the PC at ultra settings with ray-tracing both in replays and during gameplay. The mad lads have truly gone mad. The cars are beautifully modeled to perfection. They look so real as if you could touch them.
The environment is also vastly improved, but truth be told, most environments in sim-racing games are very flat and boring as you are just on a plain road track. You are not driving in a busy city street like you would in Forza Horizon, or something like that, so if you are looking for some gorgeous vistas, you won’t find them here because that is not what this game tries to provide in the first place. The game is all about the journey between you and the car itself.
The sound design is also on another level. The car engines are roaring and come off extremely aggressive as you’d expect them to. All of the audio was remastered in Forza Motorsport for a brand-new audio experience, and it shows.
One thing I found odd, however, was that the FPS was locked to 60 when playing multiplayer, but it still included full ray tracing during gameplay. I am not sure what the reasoning for this was, but I assume it was for the sake of parity and keeping the competitive edge equal across the Xbox Series X|S and PC. To be quite honest, I find that very strange, especially if the individual has built or purchased a very high-end PC. Maybe they’ll unlock the multiplayer framerate in the future, but who knows?
Other than that, Forza Motorsport is a very beautiful game. The cars are a joy to look at and listen to as well. You won’t be disappointed here, except with the multiplayer framerate parity.
Final Verdict
Overall, Forza Motorsport is a great game. The only real negative is the car leveling system, which can feel awkward at times due to how many cars you’d have to level from scratch. Thankfully, the leveling is quick and not as painfully slow as I thought it would be. However, that doesn’t excuse the weird design choice of having to re-level a new car every time you buy one, even if it’s the same vehicle. Yes, you can own two of the same cars with different builds, but you’d have to level them up both from scratch. The career mode is quite meaty, and that’s where the majority of future content updates will occur, so you will have plenty of content to look forward to in the future. Multiplayer is also pretty good and has a variety of events that occur at different times.
Not being able to go straight to the race in the career mode menus is also quite annoying and is a waste of the player’s time. While this is not as big of a detriment as the car leveling system, it still can hamper the experience by having the players constantly go out of menus, pressing buttons, and going through loading screens to get to the real race. The visuals and the audio, however, are where this game shines the most, and the gameplay itself in terms of how the cars feel when you drive them.
Sadly, I do not have a racing wheel, but the controller felt quite amazing and easy to use. The variety of difficulty customization is also very good. The game has a ton of accessibility options for those who need extra aid. I won’t be going into the details of them, but all you need to know is that it’s extremely customizable, which is a fantastic thing. The lack of unlocked framerate in multiplayer is another small issue. While it’s not super detrimental to the overall experience, I still believe it sucks that the game doesn’t let you enjoy its fullest visual fidelity for the sake of competitive parity.
Forza Motorsport will be receiving a final verdict of 8.5 out of 10. All in all, it’s a great game with a few weird design choices that hopefully could be addressed in the future. But the experience of racing itself is addicting, beautiful, and top-notch. It also has a ton of content for you to mess around with, 500 cars to collect, monthly rotational events to participate in, and a fun multiplayer mode to play by yourself or with your friends.
