Turn 10 Studios are back for their eighth installment into the Forza Motorsport series, with the first one being released back in 2005, so this game was eighteen years in the making, and needless to say, the series has come a hell of a long way since its initial release. Turn 10 Studios has teamed up with Xbox Games Studios to create an absolute racing masterpiece.

Forza Motorsport will be launching with twenty tracks that have been completely rebuilt, with more coming in future updates, and I’ll be the first to say it – I hope we see Mount Panorama (Bathurst) added, because that was the first thing I noticed, and the track that I have put hundreds of laps around in the past. The developers did not leave out any detail in the rebuilt tracks, and they look absolutely phenomenal. They have completely utilized the power of the current generation of consoles and I’m excited to see what other tracks are brought to life in the future and how real they will look. The game has some fan favorites at launch, like Homestead Miami Speedway and Suzuka Circuit, so while you might not see your favourite track, it could possibly be coming in a future update.

On launch, there will be 500+ cars in the Forza catalogue, and it was awesome seeing some iconic Australian vehicles amongst all the cars. I have always loved the selection of vehicles in the Forza games, and in Forza Motorsport they are the best they have ever looked. More will be added in the Car Pass, and if it’s like previous titles, we could see lots of special event cars coming into the game as well. For the most part, the cars look incredible. The level of detail on the exterior is immaculate, and this carries into the interior, which, for the most part, is also amazing, but I did notice that the dashboard cluster appeared blurry and difficult to read. You could still see the needles moving as you revved your engine and sped off the starting line, but it broke the immersion of the first-person experience.

You can join the Builders Cup in career mode, starting with an introductory series composed of three races you’ll need to compete in to enter the Builders Cup. This is further broken down into a bunch of different series you need to complete, and you need to do them one by one to unlock the next one.

The series is also broken down into five tours, which are Modern Tour, Enthusiast Tour, Power Tour, Legacy Tour, and Open Class Tour, which all have five series and five races, so if you do some simple maths, you will need to complete 125 races to complete the Builders Cup Series.

You can also do another mode in the career called “Featured,” and again, this is broken down into five races, but you’ll need to wait until the series unlocks, so at the time of writing this review, you can compete in one called “Track Day,” and we need to wait 11 days for Built to Race to unlock. The career mode is a quick way to level the cars up with the races, though I did experience the occasional problem where the game would go to an infinite loading screen as I was returning to the menu, which slowed things down a little.

Multiplayer is broken down into two game modes; “Featured Multiplayer” and “Private Multiplayer.” Both modes offer some good fun, but as you would assume, it’s multiplayer, and it’s a racing game, so there’s always chaos. When you enter the Featured Multiplayer section, you will need to complete an introduction called the “Qualifier Series.” This is broken up into three different races which will give you your safety rating and get you organized for some online chaos.

This series was some good fun, and the mode was full of clean racers. It was not until this was complete and I jumped into the Spec Events or the Open Events that people decided that they preferred playing a title like Wreckfest, turning the race into a demolition derby. The Spec Events and Open Events change all the time, but they are a little like the career mode in that you can do a GT Series or Touring Car Series, which all have different vehicles, and are all different levels of fun. You could be racing something that goes super slow, or jumping behind the wheel of a hypercar that you can barely control around Homestead-Miami Speedway. The options seem to be endless, and all you need to do is keep checking.

I was a little disappointed to see there were no official lobbies for drifting or drag racing, which I spent plenty of time in Forza Motorsport 7 doing, or even the mini-games like Infected, but we might see them in a future update when the game has been out for a little while.

The safety rating is broken up into six different ratings which are S, A, B, C, D, and E, with S being the best, and E being the worst. This helps to eliminate being put into lobbies with trolls that, as I mentioned before, would rather play a game like Wreckfest instead of putting the rubber to the track and racing.

If you want a more chilled approach and just want to throw down with some AI, or even test your newly tuned car on the track for as long as you want undisturbed, then “Free Play” is the mode designed for you, and it’s broken down into two different categories – “Quick Event Setup” and “Advanced Event Setup”. Quick Event Setup is designed for quick races, where you select a game mode, the track, and a car, and then throw it down on the track. You have three different modes to choose from, being Classic Race, Timed Race, and Test Drive. You can select one of the twenty included tracks and decide which layout you want to run, either normal or reversed, and obviously, what time of the day you want. You can even select how many AI drivers you want out on the track. I tend to spend lots of time in classic races with lots of AI, learning the tracks, where to hit the brakes, and when to hit the apex on each corner, so that when I jump online, I can race the best possible way.

If you want to enter the more competitive side of Forza Motorsport and love setting the best times around a track, Rivals is back and as much fun as ever. You select the class and track you want to do before being shown the slowest time set, and you’ll need to beat it. Each time you beat the time, you’re given a new target to beat, so put yourself on the leaderboard and see who can beat your time. Time Trials have never been my best category in racing games because I become too competitive and end up throwing the car off the track taking a corner too quickly as I try to demolish someone’s time. Funnily enough, the gamemode was easier with the lower-spec cars compared to your X Class cars, so I would recommend working through the classes.

Tuning and customisation have been overhauled in this title, and I’m still on the fence about it. I can’t decide if it’s a step in the right direction or not, but I think the community will have their say soon enough. In the previous Forza Motorsports games, you could purchase a vehicle before going to the store, and as long as you had the funds available, you could build the car into anything you wanted, be it a race car, a drift car, or even a drag car, the options were endless.

Forza Motorsport has added a leveling system to the cars, where you need to level the cars to unlock the modifications, for instance, you need level 20 to unlock intercooler updates to the cars, or level 40 if you want to put that V12 in a BMW. It makes you race the cars to unlock the levels on them, which takes away from some of the insane builds you would see on the track whilst drifting or racing in the previous title.

It also sounds like the audio customisation with the different exhausts has been removed which was a major feature in the latest Horizon title. Tuning has not changed much, and you can still get into the nitty gritty side of tuning cars if you want, from adjusting gears to changing the suspension to suit your racing needs.

I’m not a creative person when it comes to creating decals or awesome livery for your race car, by any means, but I can appreciate the time and skill people put into making these on previous titles. The system itself does not feel like it’s been changed since the previous game, but this is also something you can’t change too much. If you want to rock a livery you had from a previous title, you can import your liveries from previous motorsport or horizon titles, but only if you own the same car. My skill level stops with painting the cars a certain color I want, but who knows, I might even attempt making an MKAU livery for one of my cars.

If you love creating media content with pictures of your creations, you’ll be glad to know there is something in the menu just for you. You can take photos during a race, and then head over to the “Media” tab to view them, and if you want, share them with the rest of the community to see how good your photography skills are.

I was a little surprised that the exhaust notes didn’t seem to change when you upgraded the exhaust, which was a huge factor in the previous Horizon game as it added some great sound variety on the tracks. The cars sounded great in this edition, but I could not customize them to what I wanted them to sound like, which was a bit of a bummer. Having said that, we have Subarus that sound like Subarus, and Supras that sound like Supras, which is what everyone has wanted all along. Streamers also have the option to link Spotify accounts and listen whilst racing, which is a cool little feature. Just remember that you might receive a DMCA for playing music, but it could be worth the risk to sink those cool laps around the track.

I was super surprised and pleased with the controls in this game, as Forza has always been one of those games where the wheel didn’t feel optimized, but this year, I’m proud to say that it feels fantastic. The cars handle so nicely with the Logitech wheel.

Forza has always been one of those titles I preferred playing with the controller because the wheels never ran quite right with the forced feedback and all, but this year, I preferred using the wheel over the controller, but don’t get me wrong, the controller feels great and is perfectly capable, but you need to feather the brake a whole lot more with the controller, and the steering felt like it was over-compensating with the controller – I constantly found myself either over steering or under steering. It’s going to take me a little bit of time to get used to throwing the cars around the tracks with the wheel, but for the first time ever, I’m keen to use the wheel and throw some laps so I can finally get some good use of my racing simulator.

I’ve spent a good chunk of time on this title and the graphics are still blowing me away. Each track had its own beautiful feel, and the weather effects changed them up further, even if you were running the same selections, like the sunset would look different on Suzuka Circuit compared to Nurburgring, which is not a simple track, so daydreaming about how nice the environment looks is not something you want to be doing.

You can have a beautiful sunny race with clear views and ideal conditions, or test your reaction times during a foggy morning, or during pouring rain as a storm rolls overhead, where hitting corners at 200km/h is not a simple task. The way the weather looked and how it affected the tracks was incredibly realistic, and it added a whole new level of immersion to the game. It was also great that we could race during different times of day, with the track getting darker and darker, and once your headlights come on and the track lights turn on, it felt like a completely new track.

Accessibility plays a big part in Forza Motorsport, and on top of the usual assists, such as those that help with braking, steering, and pit entry, players will also have full access to remap their control scheme. They’ve also gone a step further, adding new visual options such as a colourblind filter, moving backgrounds, and the ability to change the menu text size. Subtitles will help the hearing impaired, while audio descriptions, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and audio cues help those with vision concerns.

You often see teasers where they talk about how great the environments and cars look, and most of the time, you’re left disappointed, but not this time. Forza Motorsport is an immersive experience in a world of its own, drawing you in and making you feel like you’re right there behind the wheel of your favourite car. With accessibility options to suit almost every need, we’ll hopefully find more people getting a chance to drive their favourite cars.

Written by: Hayden Nelson