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Although it’s hard to believe, it’s been five years Forza Motorsport 7 started. What was once a sim racing franchise that traded with the open world every two years Forza Horizon games has slowed down in output, presumably to allow developer Turn 10 Studios to rebuild it Gran Turismo competitor from scratch. The result is the new Forza Motorsport – not a number – and it’s coming in Spring 2023.
Dan Greenawalt, Managing Director of Motorsports Franchise called this reboot “the most technically advanced racing game ever made” due to features like real-time in-game ray tracing for detailed reflections, fully variable time of day and weather simulation for each track, and “completely overhauled” driving dynamics. Chris Esaki, the game’s creative director, called the latter a “48x improvement in the fidelity of our physics simulation” – vague as we don’t yet know exactly which aspects of handling have been improved. We’ll hopefully get more insights next Thursday during the next monthly Forza stream.
What is clear is that Maple Valley is a place that dates back to the very beginning of time Forza Motorsport on the original Xbox, has been completely rebuilt with new scenery. The result looks beautiful, with a ForzaHorizon 5-esque attention to capturing textures and surfaces with photogrammetry for a leap in depth and detail.
On the racing side for a long time forza Fans will appreciate that simulation of fuel consumption as well as wear and tear of different tire compounds has finally been included. Asphalt also “gums up” over the course of a session, a phenomenon that Gran Turismo 7 makes no attempt to replicate. These aspects, coupled with the new dynamic environments, should add a strategic element to longer races that the series has historically lacked. From turn 10 Notice:
Fundamental to Forza Motorsport is our fully dynamic time of day system, bringing tracks to life in stunning detail and how the weather will be available at each track. Changes in the time of day will change ambient temperatures, which in turn will affect track surface temperatures. These changes in track temperature will affect your car’s grip, as will padding and the weather. These new simulation details add further depth, drama and dynamism to the racing experience.
Damage received love too, which is refreshing since it’s an aspect of racing that most racing developers tend to ignore these days. Esaki’s words here are tinged with a certain exaggeration – claims of destruction that are “reproduced down to the last scratch on the body” hardly ring significant to those of us who remember hitting a barrier in the original Forza Motorsport want Leave traces of your car paint on the concrete. In the demo we see an Audi R8 GT3 that has been thoroughly wrinkled and scratched from an off-track foray into Maple Valley’s infamous final corner, but crucially all its parts are still attached.
Nevertheless, Forza Motorsport looks impressive at this point and will likely become even more stunning by next year’s launch. In this portion of gameplay and trailer shown at Sunday’s Xbox and Bethesda event, Turn 10 teased of all the Laguna Seca, Spa Francorchamps and South African Kyalami featured in the game. Kyalami is a particularly inspired choice as it tends to miss out on many racing titles. A fictional track set in Japan called Circuit Hakone will also debut.
IMSA’s Acura and Cadillac DPi prototypes, the 1966 Chapparal 2E and the 1977 Honda RA300 stood out among the more surprising highlights of the vehicle list featured in the trailer. This new iteration in the Motorsports The series appears to be focused on race cars, although street cars have not been left behind. You can review the full list of cars featured in the footage at the game official page.
Microsoft wasn’t clear on Sunday if Forza Motorsport will be another cross-generational release, like ForzaHorizon 5, or whether it will be exclusive to the current-gen Xbox Series X, S, and PC. Personally, I’d like to see Turn 10 leave behind outdated hardware and do everything it can to take advantage of today’s consoles, despite the game having a closed beta last year Supposedly runs on Xbox One. We reached out to Microsoft to see if that version has been scrapped, though it’s entirely possible the company hasn’t made a final decision just yet.
