Forza Horizon 4 - Game of the Week

My Game of the Week has to go to the incredible Forza Horizon 4, It'll have you racing to beat all of your friends and putting in that extra effort just to get across the line first.

Overview

Dynamic seasons change everything at the world’s greatest automotive festival. Go it alone or team up with others to explore beautiful and historic Britain in a shared open world. Collect, modify and drive over 450 cars. Race, stunt, create and explore – choose your own path to become a Horizon Superstar.

Usually, racing games can often feel repetitive and limited, but that's not the case in Forza Horizon 4 due to Seasons, Revised Perks trees and more. You going to have to put some serious hours into this game if you want to experience everything it has to offer and that's before the expansions are launched especially since more events unlock as you complete others plus Barn Finds and Board Smashes are back!

Unlocks and Upgrades

I'd be here all day if I wrote about everything you can do in this game to make it unique and your own, that's due to every car (of which there are over 450) having its own parts upgrades and perks trees.

Skills Trees

In Forza Horizon 3 one of the best features was the in game's skill perks tree and thankfully they have seen much fans enjoyed it. It's been given a massive upgrade for this edition of the game, now you get a Car Mastery perk tree for each vehicle that has perks to help you increase multipliers (perfect for Forzathon), gain extra influence and some other things such as lucky wheel spins.

Top Tip #1

Don't spend your skills straight away! As the perk trees are tired to the single car it means to make the most of your new skills you'll have to be driving around in that car, so when you start exploring pick a phenomenal ride that you'll have a blast with.

Seasons

Much like the real British weather, it's going to feel like four seasons in each month and that's because in Forza Horizon 4 the in-game season will switch every real-time week after the initial introduction phase in which it rotates every hour or so. This means you're going to have to swap out your setups and driving style each week just to stay on top.

Forzathon

Teamwork is essential here, a Forzathon is a shared goal challenge in which you'll take part alongside eleven other drivers. These go live every hour in a random spot on the map so first of all, you'll have to race your way to the participation circle then it's all about doing your bit to chip away at that goal. You'll find yourself balancing what you're doing and stunningly speeding to take part once they go live.

Top Tip #2

Take part in as many Forzathon events as you can. With each challenge completed in these events, you'll earn 'Forzathon points' which can be spent at a separate shop for wheel spins, vanity items and rare cars. If that wasn't enough to tempt you, it's a great way to increase your skills points too.

Creativity

With blueprints, car customization, photo mode and more Forza Horizon 4 offers everything you could want to create some exciting content. Blueprints allow for you to create custom races. Car customization is just that it allows you to spray your car, apply vinyl and even create your own custom vinyl. Photo mode which has been a favourite feature within the Forza game series for a while now is back and of course, I've taken a couple of shots.

Style

Stunningly gorgeous and true to life, this feels like the most realistic Forza to date. You just need to spend some time driving and exploring throughout different times of the day, you'll really fall in love with it.

Downloadable Content

There's already so much planned and announced with two expansion, multiple car packs and car passes. A favourite of mine is the already released (and included within the Ultimate Edition) Best of Bond Car Pack which let's you jump in an Aston Martin, AMC Hornet, Lotus Esprit and more.

Music

Due to the closing of the Groove Music service, there is no longer in-game OneDrive music support but it's not all bad news there are some brilliant tracks on the radio stations for when your not taking in all the details of the car and environment sounds.

Final Thoughts

Horizon once again raises the bar of racing games and instantly because a joy to play. It's easy to lose hours just driving around enjoying the beauty of this game but when you do get down to racing it's a brilliant feeling, you're not going to want to put this one down.

Platforms

Xbox One

Windows 10