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What Did You Think of Forza Horizon 4? Here's the Complete Round-up of Our Final Thoughts on This Open-World Racer and Its Expansions! Forza Horizon 4 Isn't...
What did you think of Forza Horizon 4? Here's the complete round-up of our final thoughts on this open-world racer and its expansions!
Forza Horizon 4 isn't disappearing from stores or the Game Pass for the time being. But as Forza Horizon 5 is rapidly approaching release, we thought it was time to look back over the previous edition. Let's look at what we loved and what we didn't love about this glorious game.
The cars of Forza Horizon 4
Probably the most important feature of a driving game is the cars we get to experience. In Forza Horizon 4 there were 752 vehicles to collect, including the Preorder and Forza Edition variants. It's hard to argue there wasn't great value in this regard.
Players would generally have liked to see more everyday cars and less of an emphasis on performance machines. There was little in the way of a sense of progression, as players could very quickly start acquiring a large garage of cars that would be unobtainable in real life and none were locked away behind level requirements. This is in contrast to Forza Motorsport 7 where you often had to work hard early game to get the vehicle you desired.
On the other hand, there did seem to be something for everyone. There are other manufacturers we would have liked to see, but on the whole the game was pretty diverse in its driving options, albeit with a focus on supercars.
The tuning options were powerful and enabled us to get cars really dialed in. On the other hand, the cosmetic options were often quite lacking. JDM fans bemoaned the lack of body kits and compared the game unfavourably to Need For Speed: Heat.
We're excited to see that some of this community feedback has been taken on board. We'll be able to open the tops on convertible and will have a bigger range of cosmetic updates in Forza Horizon 5.
The headline features and game modes
Before release, the big new feature for Forza Horizon 4 was the changing seasons. This ultimately turned out to be both a blessing and a curse for players. While the Spring and Autumn seasons were especially popular with photographers, the Winter season was pretty unloved by most of the community.
It was tough to get around in winter with the extreme amounts of snow across the map. Cars needed to be tuned especially for the low grip. It wasn't great for photography either. It's a frequent joke on the Reddit and Discord groups that winter is the time to take a break from the game. For the fifth Forza Horizon game it's notable that there will now be snow only at the highest peak of the volcano, which has been seen as a response to player feedback.
The hourly Forzathon live events were also promoted before release. Up to twelve players work as a team to complete tasks and accumulate points. These hourly events are still popular on the Forza Horizon 4 servers. This concept has been expanded upon for Forza Horizon 5 with a rolling series of games players can drop in and out of.
The Eliminator was added to Forza Horizon for update 17. Developers were responding to the fad for battle royale game modes. This was a polarising game feature. For some players it became their favourite part of the Forza Horizon experience. Other players (admittedly, myself included) never really saw the appeal and stuck to the racing.
