Forza Horizon 4

[Paul Jeffrey]

Microsoft have confirmed the acquisition of Playground Games, bringing the Forza Horizon franchise under the banner of the mammoth American technology giants.

Having run the development and publishing of the popular spinoff to the Forza Motorsport franchise of games for a number of years now, Playground Games have been snapped up by Microsoft with the intention of bringing Forza Horizon into the same portfolio of companies as its big brother, Forza Motorsport.

Based in the United Kingdom, Playground Games will have a slightly modified structure and reporting lines, but will still be focussed on developing the popular arcade spin off series to the main Forza Motorsport franchise.

Now headed by Microsoft's Vice President Keith Dolliver, and no doubt benefiting from both a financial and a technological boost thanks to the new ownership, Playground will continue to be based in the UK for the foreseeable future, and aim to expand their creative output to more than just the Horizon series, as is explained by Alan Hartman, Studio Head of the Forza Franchise:

"Ever since Playground Games was established as a studio, they have partnered exclusively with Turn 10 Studios and, together, both teams’ shared vision, strong partnership, and successful collaboration have advanced the Forza franchise to new heights. The Forza racing franchise saw its biggest year yet in 2017, with over 22 million unique fans driving throughout Forza games. We could not have reached this success without Playground Games’ incredible talent, which resulted in 2016’s award-winning, breakout hit, Forza Horizon 3.

Playground Games’ unique, creative vision and passion, together with the power and resources of Microsoft, will see this innovative team take their talents to an all-new level. Playground Games will continue to work on Forza Horizon and they are bringing their open world expertise to an entirely new project we’ll have more to share about later."
​

Exactly what the new project is set to entail remains to be seen, however with the might of Microsoft behind them, and an enviable record to date, no doubt the next few titles to come from this British studio are sure to be a hit amongst arcade racing fans the world over...

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Happy to hear of the ownership change for Playground Games? Looking forward to new products? Fan of the Forza Horizon franchise? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Earlier today Playground Games and Microsoft announced the latest addition to the Forza franchise of games... introducing Forza Horizon 4.

The first output of the newly cemented ownership of Playground Games by industry giants Microsoft, Forza Horizon 4 is set to be the latest edition of the best selling arcade racing game spin off to the popular Forza Motorsport franchise of titles.

Building on the success of the last release, Horizon 4 aims to be bigger and better than the ever before as Playground Games look to incorporate many new features to the series, expanding yet further the themes and gameplay mechanics that have been honed over the previous three titles within the series.

Set to be based in England for the first time, Horizon 4 promises to offer a large and immersive open world map that looks set to take in some of the most historic landscapes found in the UK, from city driving in London to rolling hillsides and beaches, Horizon 4 will continue the recent tradition of launching on both Xbox One, Xbox One X (in 4K) and Windows 10 PC.

With high end graphics and high octane action, the new title is set to contain an impressive array of cars from the history of road and race machines. At the very front and centre will be the stunning new McLaren Senna alongside over 450 cars from 100 different manufacturers, giving fans an enviable opportunity to sample many of the automotive greats (and probably not so great too) cars from different eras, both of the road, race and off road varieties..

As well as the sizable selection of vanilla car content, Horizon 4 should also come with a comprehensive customisation set of tools, allowing players to change liveries, driver gear, settings and setups to suit the environments in which they plan to race.

In terms of what we know so far, it looks like Horizon 4 will feature what the developers are calling "dynamic seasons that change gameplay", which one must assume means both weather and time of day settings, although the exact detail behind this statement has yet to be revealed.

Additionally, and something new to the franchise, players will also have the opportunity to unlock and purchase key property assets within the game world, opening up previously locked gameplay perks and items, adding another element of career like gameplay to the title aside from the main ingredient of car collection and racing.

In terms of online functionality, players can choose to play alone, cooperatively or join multiplayer for casual fun or ranked teams. In addition, integrated Mixer broadcasting and spectating features will be also be present at game launch.

All sounds pretty exciting stuff, stay tuned to RaceDepartment for more information as it becomes known...

Forza Horizon 4 will be released on Xbox and Windows 10 PC October 2nd 2018.

Check out the upcoming Forza Horizon 4 sub forum to stay abreast of the latest news and discussions around this upcoming new arcade racing title.

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Like the sound of Horizon 4? Looking forward to the new game? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Kjell81d]

Microsoft is on a buying spree. Somethings up.

 

[Jordan Dion]

mod-edit: please mind your language

 

[ozm8ey]

Looks good I'm hoping they remove the xp to win online championship, with forza horizon 3 you can just drift around the race/track to win instead of coming first. Also heard they're adding potholes lol

 

[VFX Pro]

They have to support UDP for motion rig and support for high end wheels like Accuforce, etc... this time around!

 

[sjb266]

Excellent.. can’t wait!

 

[SamuelSouza]

I wish they fleshed out the progression, in minutes you're driving top tier cars and swimming in money... I miss starting with simple cars and going up on the food chain

 

[InsaneOzzie]

So does this mean MS is moving to join the sim racing scene, or just general game dev, either way I bet they will be windows 10 exclusive titles regardless of genre.

 

[M D Gourley]

Happy to hear of the ownership change for Playground Games? Looking forward to new products? Fan of the Forza Horizon franchise?

Sounds ok...unless Microsoft are are using this purchase as a tax right off, lol...highly unlikely though. Playground Games look like they have great experience in Game development and Microsoft have the ideal platforms with both Console and PC...I good match....but sadly, as a Hardcore Sim Racer I may not get to sample any of their goods unless Forza turns Sim (Sim = Automobilista) or they develop a Sim Race Game...only my personal thoughts.

 

[InsaneOzzie]

Typical, another attempt to force a system upgrade to W10 whats wrong with making it W7 compatible, there's still millions of W7 systems being used, oh well their loss I guess, $$$.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

UWP

 

[Icky427]

They have to support UDP for motion rig and support for high end wheels like Accuforce, etc... this time around!

i wouldnt count on forzas physics and ffb to be up to snuff for use with real wheels. i played fm6 with the cswv2 and after being spoiled by assetto for a few years, it was pretty much undrivable. beamNG ffb is better, no joke.

 

[John Jorell]

The only thing I found good with Horizon 4 is the weather transition from season to season. Still intrigued with the upcoming car list though.

 

[Davy Jones]

I hope they get rid of that horrible "Kiera" voice over, the posh south side Dublin City accent, as an Irishman its like a dentist's drill in my ear

 

[Davy Jones]

So does this mean MS is moving to join the sim racing scene, or just general game dev, either way I bet they will be windows 10 exclusive titles regardless of genre.

well yes, they want to push Win 10 and their Store, and you can't blame them. I've no idea but I assume those Win 10 Store 'UWP' apps are able to prevent or reduce piracy in some way. If a standard Windows executable can be easily cracked there's no way its going on Win 7.

 

[Jimlaad43]

I am going to waste so much money on this game

 

[RMR1]

 

[shimon.ifraimov]

at least the expansion packs are now included with the pass, good move by them because a lot of people were mad last time that they paid for ultimate and then didn't get the expansion packs included.

i also see that they finally made the walls breakable which is also pretty good, and some deformable sand and mud.
i like the seasons BUT i really dont think its dynamic as they say, i think it will be a loading screen transition.

now there's couple of things that prevent me from buying this based on previous experience with fh3.
1.the windows store is terrible and sometimes will start over your game download several times from the beginning. they also encrypt all the game files and lock you out from even opening the game folder.
2.the performance on older systems is terrible, forza games for some reason take up all the memory and then some more until it crashes. and then there is also the cpu usage issues where it hammers only one core.

 

[DowntownSIX]

They have to support UDP for motion rig and support for high end wheels like Accuforce, etc... this time around!

Be careful what you wish for, Forza FFB feels like I'm driving a sausage. I'll be sticking to my controller.