We ran the game on Extreme settings at 4K resolution and for the most part, the game ran at a locked 60 frames per second. Furthermore, there is also an in-game performance benchmarking tool which is ideal if you want to test the game before you jump into the experience.
FORZA HORIZON 5 XBOX PC
Just like Forza Horizon 4, the PC version is packed with a ton of graphical options like MSAA, World Car Level of Detail and Environmental Texture Quality. This is above and beyond the Ideal specifications the developer recommends. Our PC includes an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X processor, 32 GB of memory and an RTX 3080Ti.
FORZA HORIZON 5 XBOX SERIES
We got the chance to analyze the game’s performance on both the PC and Xbox Series X. With its latest game, Playground Games has set a new graphical benchmark for open world racers. Taking placed in Mexico, the visuals on display look absolutely breathtaking, thanks to the use of photogrammetry. Above all, however, it is the result of a racing studio at the peak of its craft and the best open-world racing game I’ve ever played.Forza Horizon 5 is a stunning achievement, both in terms of its technical and gameplay design. It looks beautiful, it sounds magnificent, and it is glorious to play.
It never locks you into something you don’t want to do and steadily rewards you for however you choose to play it. It’s a long haul, MMO-inspired racer that’s exploding with more races, activities, and event types than can comfortably fit on some parts of the map – and yet it still always feels relaxed rather than daunting. It’s an occasionally goofy but always earnest Valentine to Mexico’s world-famous culture, and a romantic ode to the magic of road-tripping through postcard-perfect vacation vistas. It’s also an extremely accessible buffet of racing spectacle open to everyone, from Deluxe Edition diehards to Game Pass nomads – no matter their driving skill or mechanical knowledge. One has you racing through trees as lightning strikes the ground ahead, while another has you racing up and back down the rumbling volcano as jets of steam break through the ground around you.įorza Horizon 5 is a deep and nuanced car nirvana for revheads and auto geeks to endlessly collect, tinker, and experiment. These Expeditions inject a little bit of the flavour of the Horizon series’ fabulous but fleeting opening drive montages back into the main career, where Playground stage manages vehicles, the time-of-day lighting, and the weather for memorable journeys that showcase Horizon 5 at its very best. What this has allowed Playground to do is add a handful of additional curated drives to Horizon 5, which it’s dubbed Expeditions. These points, or “Accolades,” are awarded for achieving major and minor feats, and essentially function as a dramatically expanded version of the Brick Challenges in Forza Horizon 4’s LEGO expansion. It looks brilliant.Ī rethink in how the career mode unfolds has seen Playground add a new points system that allows you to take charge of what event hubs and special races you want to prioritise unlocking. It’s tough to pick my favourite visual element of Horizon 5, but think it might just be the drastically better smoke and dust effects – and especially how light interacts with the particles in the air. I’ve been playing mostly on quality mode since the frame rate never, ever wavers in either mode – remaining rock solid at all times and in all conditions – but know that the visual concessions in performance mode are generally so small I need to study freeze frames to spot the difference anyhow. On Xbox Series X that’s true of both the 4K/30FPS quality mode and the 4K/60FPS performance mode. but you still can’t place decals on glass, which remains a shame.īetween the cars and the map, however, Forza Horizon 5 is barnstormingly gorgeous on both fronts.
Changes to the livery editor also see it support higher resolution designs and graphics. Granted, there isn’t a huge number of cars that are strictly new to the franchise – and those of us who stuck around Forza Horizon 4 each week for the last few years collecting every new car will have seen the lion’s share of them before – but Playground has assuaged that slightly with the addition of a lot of new rim options and visual upgrades that may help breathe new life into cars you’ve seen a lot of previously. The garage is just as grand as the map itself, with well over 500 vehicles, and it’s a selection that still handily eclipses all Forza Horizon’s open-world racing rivals.