New Forza Motorsport next-gen footage fails to capture the excitement of racing
Turn 10 has given us what might be the deepest look at Forza Motorsport gameplay yet, but it looks a bit tame.
Forza Motorsport developer, Turn 10, released nearly 18 minutes of new footage from its upcoming series reboot. Made up entirely of gameplay, the new video captures the first few minutes of the game.
It starts off with a practice lap at Maple Valley, before it jumps to Hakone where we get to see two laps of an endurance race on the track. This is very much the tutorial of the game, where you're taught to read the braking lines and how to... well, drive a racing car in a video game.
Along the way, we get to see the detailed interiors of three cars, and the ray-traced visuals of the exteriors and surrounding environments. Together with the upgraded sounds, the game does look and sound like a major technical upgrade over its predecessors, but it's just so uneventful.
I get that this isn't Forza Horizon, and that you're supposed to take it more seriously, but for all the hubbub about real vehicle and tyre damage, there's barely any of that to be seen here. The player simply follows the racing line as much as they can until the segment ends.
We also see some footage of the Builders Cup Intro Series, which shows character customisation, and a few of the starting vehicles. Builders Cup is Forza Motorsport's new career mode, which is a fresh way to experience the game's large collection of cars and tracks, and "have a relationship with your car".
The gameplay showcase concludes with a full grid race on Grand Oak Raceway, driving the 2018 Honda Civic Type R. Again, this is supposed to be a low-key introduction to the game, but I just can't shake how by-the-numbers it all looks.
I would have liked to see a section from deeper into the game that showcases what sets the new game apart, or really delve into some wheel-to-wheel racing to demonstrate the sense of speed and excitement that compels me to watch real-world racing.
We've embedded the full thing above, so you can judge it for yourself. Forza Motorsport is out October 10 on PC, and Xbox Series X/S. It's a day-one Game Pass game, of course, but you can play it up to five days early by purchasing the Premium Edition.