Forza Motorsport Review

Version tested: Series X, PC and Steam Deck (PC: 7900xt, 5800x3d)

The time has finally come! Forza Motorsport is finally here a whole six years after it’s predecessor FM7, will this hugely anticipated sim racer live up to the huge expectations or will it be an old greasy bag of bolts? Lets find out!

Forza Horizon 5 has to be one of the best racing games out there but it has never took itself seriously and just complete outright fun! The Forza Motorsport series is something completely different and is basically ‘Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s Gran Turismo series. As soon as the game starts you can only appreciate how fantastic everything looks and getting out there on track with a bit of ray-tracing on the PC only enhances things further! Be warned though, playing with the ultra real settings is going to require some powerful hardware, this goes for consoles too, the Series X is flawless but the difference can be seen when switching over to the Series S.

If you like to tinker with settings to get the game to your liking there is plenty to play around with, on the Series X I used RT performance which added some great ray-tracing affects to cars and objects around the track, sticking to performance mode was important to me as it didn’t sacrifice frame-rate instead it was at the cost of resolution.

Graphically the game looks amazing though on pretty much all different settings, cars are realistic and all have amazing detail while tracks all look great with accuracy and detail all over. While talking about the tracks, there are currently 20 on offer although it has been announced that further tracks will be added in the future for the grand cost of….. nothing! Totally free!

So with twenty circuits and 14 tracks on offer we need a decent number of cars available to race around and FM currently has over 500 cars available to players with plenty more to come in the future, unsure sadly if these additions will be free though.

(On the subject of free, Forza Motorsport will be added to Gamepass so definitely check it out on launch day!)

Having all these cars and tracks is only any good if the game plays well though and I am glad to report that in this department handling is fantastic! Something feels a little more user friendly in this new version of Forza, while still feeling like a strong sim racer it just feels fantastic to drive and is just great fun. I sadly don’t have a wheel to test things out but the controller feels fantastic! Using the triggers to control braking and pushing the controller stick just the right amount are crucial to making it around the track as fast as possible.

Difficulty is very adjustable too and if you are finding opponents a little too fast their skill can be adjusted making it just that bit easier to catch them but this is at the expense of car points which are needed to upgrade vehicles and progress through the careers many races.

Races against AI are of a really good standard and with the right difficulty can be a real challenge, don’t get frustrated and start slamming into others or cutting corners as each thing you do will be checked and could result in a time penalty impacting your final race position.

Tuning was huge in FM7 and it’s back for Forza Motorsport as well. Sadly it’s not quite as easy as before as instead of every car having upgrades and the player just applying them like in FM7, Forza Motorsport wants players to gain experience in the car they want to upgrade before the upgrades are available. As you drive around tracks you will notice the car level increasing, car points will then be used to upgrade each car but it can take hours to upgrade each individual car to the spec each user wants. It’s a bit of a strange setup from Turn 10 but I guess it’s something we will all have to live with, earning credits to upgrade is a thing of the past sadly!

Lastly onto sound and as with performance, handling and visuals it’s also fantastic, cars sound realistic as you hear tyres screeching for grip around corners, while hearing turbochargers spool up and exhausts gurgle add to the realism that we have all come to expect from Forza.

Verdict:

Forza Motorsport looks, feels and sounds fantastic! Handling is tight but feels improved and very user friendly while still being aimed at sim racers. Graphics are fantastic as is performance with plenty of different options to tinker with getting the game to the users liking. Sound is authentic and hearing some of your favorite cars out on track is hair raising at times! The new upgrade system and CP isn’t going to be for everyone but there is plenty of gameplay in it and it’s something we will all need to get used to and live with. All in all Forza is back with a solid launch and it’s exciting to see what the future holds with this racing sim as Turn 10 adds and improves it in the future!

Score:

8.7 / 10

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Code was provided free of charge for my honest unbiased review.