The Fall of Forza Horizon

Great video as always! I agree that FH3 was the best title of the series. FH4 was good in the beginning, but rapidly lost its attractiveness to me because it felt so, meh, compared to the masterpieces that 2 and 3 were. And I really put some great hopes into FH5 but was once again disappointed. It is probably my least played Horizon title and mind you, I started with FH2 (also with the 360 port, so same as you xD) and only played FH1, afterwards at the time when 3 was a year old or so. The only fun I had in 5, was driving up and down the volcano in a slightly tuned Miata, which also got very boring, very quickly... I also started with FM3 as my first ever Forza and I hop back every once in a while. You know a game is great, if you enjoy to revisit it even so many years later! At this point, I dont even know if they can stop the decline anymore. I am really, really hoping that the new Motorsport will be a good game again. Same goes for whatever a new Horizon title would look like... Id wish for a good single player campaign with a REAL story line (The "stories" in 4 and 5 are a joke), aswell as an environment, which feels more organic and diverse, like it did in FH3. Australia was the perfect map for a Horizon game, since it combined all the different "zones" of the map sooooo well. The environment always felt vivid but also natural. GB and Mexico in comparison kinda feel dull and the same-ish all around the map. As to other racing games, I am most excited for TDU Solar Crown and I hope it will show us an upswing, or a turning point for the WHOLE racing game industry.

I love how in the first Horizon, you start as a nobody and you earn your way to the top. All of the new ones, you are the center of attention and it just feels like some "influencer" power fantasy

FH5 is the prime example of "So much to do, no reason to do it"

Every Horizon game after the first one is missing the one thing that made the first game so great, the progression. Having to build your cars to be competitive in a restricted car class with the limited money you had from competing in the previous races was amazing. I feel like they went way too far in giving players the freedom to choose what car they used to the point where you could be driving races in some of the fastest cars in the game only a couple hours into the game. Nothing about that is rewarding and it ruined the series for me.

10:32 FH2 has THE BEST entrance scene ever. Such a vibe and good feelings, very emotional really. Loved it, everything.

I remember Forza Horizon 2 was advertised as "you can go almost anywhere on the map!" First thing I did was collide with an indestructible guardrail.

Finally i saw someone quotiong how Forza was focused in customization. A lost in time aspect from the franchise

In my opinion, 3, 4 and 5 took away progression. You could jump straight in with super cars and the amount of money you could earn straight away was stupid. Whereas 1 and 2 forces you to begin with class E and D cars and money was harder to get so by the time you’re on class A you gotta chose a class S car or upgrade your car to S to compete

by far my favourite part about horizon 4 was the mosler incident. playground games made a limited time event where you could get a mosler mt900s from completing a weekly challenge set to a certain amount. one of the challenges being to win an online race (or multiple races (I forgor)) which would give you most of the required points. however, people quickly found that the mosler mt900s was a completely broken vehicle. one of the best for drag, downforce, corning, and top speed, all in one neat little package. when everybody started realising this, people started desperately clawing their way into the weekly championship to try and get one. I can't remember why exactly (it may have been people trolling the system somehow) but the influx of people made it nigh on impossible to get the darn car, and when the week ended, thousands of people were left without the car and would have to hope that the vehicle was put on auction and that they would be able to snipe it down. and then ~3 days after the week ended, playground games gave the vehicle to every single person who had ever played the game for free. this completely demolished the rarity of the car and all the in game leaderboards were flooded with mosler mt900s entries. good times.

I want Horizon to go back to being about climbing your way to the top and with races being locked to certain car classes or car types. I would also like for the game to not be so easy to get everything. You can get the fastest cars in the game in like a hour or two just because wheel spins are so easy to get. I started with the first Horizon game when it came out and it gave a reason to keep playing.

Damn FH3 during its peak is definitely one of my top 5 games of all time, sad to see where it’s gone from then

I remember while playing FH4, after getting bored of doing the series constantly, I'd just customize a police car and post up on the motorway and chase people trying to drag race. Gotta make your own fun somehow

FH1's singleplayer with it's armband system is just goated. Forever in my heart. I've beaten the game like 5 times, with last time being May2023 and if definitive edition ever comes out I will cry

I was one of the OG FH1 players when the game released. Seeing someone understand and share the same views makes me feel great that I'm not alone. I used to no life infected day in day out for like 4/5 years and honestly, Infected hasn't felt the same since then. There's just something about the pre-game lobby that we'll never get back

I feel like car damage became worse over the years. I remember playing Forza Horizon 1, and the car damage was pretty good, with the bumpers breaking off, windows shattering, and side mirrors breaking off, and some pretty deep dents. Forza Horizon 2 kept these damage designs, but improved upon them by making the damage dents more deeper. Forza Horizon 3 was also an improvement, with deeper damage dents and more overall damage to the body of the car. Forza Horizon 4 was when it started to fall, the bumpers stopped falling off and windows stopped shattering, the damage dents also became smaller. Forza Horizon 5 went along with this devolution with even smaller dents and the same damage minimizers as 4.

What I miss the most from FH4 to FH5 is the online free roam community. Horizon events weren't a constant thing. When one appeared it always had a large group of people who would show up. Usually a couple minutes early. Everyone in a different car, customized different ways. It was an impromptu car meet. The only interactions you had were to honk the horn, do some burnouts and spam "Nice Car" or "Nice Paint" in quick chat. And it worked. It was a weird genuine interaction without being able to even type to the person. After the event you could go back to the highway, join up with a random group, cruise the highway back and forth until the next one. Now the events are non stop, 2 at a time. Its rare to have even 1 other player join you. Which was a massive problem at launch when the goals were set to be done by multiple people so it was impossible for 1 or even 2 people to complete an event. Luckily they fixed it so now it scales to amount of players in the event. Still terrible and pointless overall though. It also seems that less people drive around together compared to 4. I tried going back to 4 recently only to find my save is completely gone and I lost everything I did in FH4 and since I don't wanna restart im stuck with FH5. And by stuck with FH5 I mean I watched this video waiting for IRacing to download on Steam. Loved the video.

Fh5 is my first Forza horizon game, I’m about 25 hours into it and I don’t even know how to access multi player, haven’t even looked for it 😂. But I am 40, and if it’s not couch competition, I’m not playing with other people. The fh5 presentation and progression is a blast compared to all the sim titles I’ve played prior to this non-sim. I’m having fun, gonna stick with it, haha.

There is something in Horizon 2 that just clicks for me. I love 1, I really like 3, and I had tons of fun early into 4's life before FOMO seasonal stuff got the best out of the series, but there is nothing else like the sunny European countryside and its occasional dramatic storms. The part that sucks big time is that it'll never be on PC, at least not the version I'm fond of. That's a major reason why I'm keeping my VCR Xbox One up and running for as long as I can.

My brother and I had a heated discussion that eventually ended with us agreeing that: In terms of graphics and environment, FH3 was the best, but we liked how you had to start from basically nothing on FH1. If they make a new one, I want to be some unknown person, not super popular and start with everything.

The original Forza Horizon had the best and most engaging story, making it easily the best in the series in my opinion. Start off with nothing, and at the very botton of the festival. Slowly but surely you get better cars, more money, get the challenge some of the big names...its exactly what a stroy needs to keep you engaged. My biggest problem with modern racing games is you are given everything for free with no work required, creating no grind in the game. You feel like you didnt do anything to earn the stuff you got. And that has never kept me engaged