Forza Horizon 5: Is Playground Games latest edition at Mexico up to mark?

Forza Horizon 5, Playground Games’ latest addition to its blockbuster franchise, is to release in a few hours. We at TheSportsRush put together everything you need to know in this concise review.

In this exclusive review, we are disclosing our opinions on Forza Horizon 5. We are also shining a light on the technical and visual aspects of the open-world racing game.

Before we dive into the exciting realm of Forza Horizon 5, let’s take a look at the rich history behind it. At the inherent globe-trotting nature of the Forza Horizon franchise.

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The franchise is centred around Horizon Festival, a music and motor racing bonanza.

Forza Horizon started out in the USA back in 2012. It was released specifically for XBOX 360. The map started out as a suburb replica from the Colorado State, US.

With FH2, FH3 and FH4, the franchise took to France/Italy, Australian Outback and Great Britain respectively. Finally, after 9 years the franchise returns to the North American Continent.

The map is quite big, but it is meagre in comparison to other open-world titles. FH4 has 72 square kilometres of open space. Ubisoft’s Crew 2, which depicted all of the USA, measured at a whopping 5100 square kilometres.

But, PlayGround Games have found just the right balance of visuals, gameplay, questline progression and Multiplayer experience. Forza Horizon 5 is an ode to that fact.

Forza Horizon 5 takes a pitstop at Mexico and Baja California for good measure. The current map size stands at 110 square kilometres.

At launch, there seems to be quite a lot of things to do. You jump into action right in as the game starts.

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This time around the Forza Horizon franchise reaches Mexico.

The 2021 Mercedes-AMG ONE and two 2021 Ford Bronco Badlands, one being grey and the other being yellow, are the cover cars. This makes Forza Horizon 5 the first Forza game to feature three cover cars.

Earlier Horizon games seemed to get the essence of Festivities. This game though has some serious existential crisis. The festivities seem toned down as if the Pandemic hit the in-game economy as well.

Also, the gameplay is a bit jittery. The loading screen videos are still hard locked to 30 frames per second. The AI seems to rubberband at higher difficulties. But there is a certain charm about how the game implements it.

Patch and performance fixes are simple and easy to get away with, but what about gameplay then. Honestly, we feel the game picks up where it left off at FH4. It is very reassuring and accessible.

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Can the current Forza Horizon surpass the sales of the last one?

The car handling is nice but feels a bit off for heavier vehicles. Most certainly, the cover car Bronco falls in that category. We had a hard time controlling the car over cliffs and landing jumps. 4WD offroaders are somewhat difficult to control on the tarmac due to massive understeers.

Drift feels solid and on the edge of the vehicle limit. That makes it extremely rewarding. The Online experience continues the same trend. We have high hopes for this game.

As usual, there is not much focus on character customisation. Also, the game looks like a budget racer at lower settings. Talking about usual, the car collection is massive with 520 cars listed at launch. Phew!

Is the new Horizon Festival worth your hard-earned money?

Is Forza Horizon 5 worth your moolah? Well yes. Definitely yes.

Considering the racing game drought that started in 2020, other than F1 2021, FH5: Mexico is something everyone wants to jump into right away.

Servers have been busy ever since they first came online on November 5. Social media has been flooding with searches, suggestions and speculations about the game features.

After around 50 hours of gameplay, we have almost done everything the game has to offer right now. The tutorial is rather long and takes around 30 minutes to complete with an ultimate rating at the highest difficulty.

Visually, the game is not much different, even though immersion has been improved a bit more. Overall, we can bet it will be a good experience for any racing game veteran or a first-timer.

It is the first proper racing game of the new decade. It has received a warm welcome from the community and they are happy at how the game turned. And the Devs definitely want to keep it that way over a series of updates and collaborations.

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