Forza Horizon 5 is a brilliant coda to the Forza series, with gorgeous graphics, exhilarating races, and more with just a few niggles.
Forza Horizon 5 is finally here, and this time we’re globetrotting south of the border to Mexico. The game is packed with the same arcade racing action that fans love, and the latest setting gave developer Playground Games the chance to make the most diverse and expansive entry in the series to date. Lovers of cars and car culture will be ecstatic to race the desert sands and drift through the rainforests. In the latest entry in the series, the Horizon Festival heads to Mexico. This time around, players get an improved storyline. After gaining a certain amount of accolade points for completing races and challenges, you can unlock Horizon Adventure chapters. These lead to short story segments that have you opening Horizon outposts or heading out on expeditions. The end result is unlocking more cars and races, but it gives some personification to the NPCs and highlights the different biomes and race types. Mexico is 50% larger than the UK map in Forza Horizon 4, and the terrain you’ll cover is much more diverse. In the previous game, the weather and seasons affected each part of the map equally. If it was raining in the north, it was raining in the south. With winter, there was snow everywhere. In Mexico, winter might bring snow on the peak of a volcano, but the coastal beaches and deserts will still be warm. There are also massive weather patterns that players can experience. The dry season can bring huge dust storms, while the storm season will bring hurricane-like torrents of rain from the sky. Where Forza Horizon 5 breaks down a bit is progression. Though the Horizon Adventure Chapters give a better feeling of forward motion than previous entries did, I would have loved to have seen an actual story mode.
