Revving Up the Horizon Series: Learning from Forza Motorsport

Highlights

The cars in Forza Motorsport have raised the bar for detailed models with their revamped lighting system and impressive effects for wear and weathering.

Playground Games, the developer of Forza Horizon, must ensure that the level of detail in the cars matches that of their Motorsport counterparts in order to maintain the game's graphical fidelity. The enhancements made to the game engine in Forza Motorsport, including realistic reflections and damage systems, would be an ideal fit for the intense and exhilarating racing experience in Forza Horizon.

The upcoming release of the next Forza Horizon game is still unknown, but it should take inspiration from Forza Motorsport in terms of detailed car models. Forza Motorsport has set a higher standard with its latest release by offering highly detailed car models, raising the bar for the franchise. In order to continue pushing boundaries, Playground Games, the developer, should ensure that the cars in the next Forza Horizon game match the level of detail seen in Forza Motorsport. Playground Games has already showcased impressive recreations of real-world and fictional vehicles in Forza Horizon 5, but Forza Motorsport stands out with its enhanced lighting system and realistic effects depicting wear and weathering. By giving the cars in the next Forza Horizon game the same level of detail as the breathtaking environments, Playground Games can achieve the same graphical quality as Forza Motorsport and better capture the intense racing experience the open-world series is recognized for.

Forza Motorsports’ Engine Improvements Would Pair Well With the Next Forza Horizon

Turn 10 Studios, the developer behind Forza Motorsport, faces limitations in environmental design due to the sim racing genre. Consequently, they dedicated significant effort to ensuring that the cars in the game look spectacular. Although the tracks in Forza Motorsport may bear a striking resemblance to real-world locations, it is the cars navigating through the turns that truly steal the spotlight. While the geometric complexity of each in-game vehicle does not appear to have undergone significant changes compared to Forza Horizon 5, the implementation of new lighting and rendering techniques in Motorsport brings the cars to life in a more realistic manner.

The exceptionally detailed cars in Turn 10 Studios' sim racing game owe their quality largely to improvements made to the ForzaTech engine, which powers both the Horizon and Motorsport franchises. Forza Motorsport's light-reactive shaders enable cars to accurately reflect the game's ray-traced lighting, while enhancements in paint portrayal ensure that they maintain a lifelike appearance, whether covered in dirt or fresh off the showroom floor. These advancements would integrate seamlessly with the visually stunning, open-world environments that have become synonymous with the Forza Horizon series. Additionally, they would allow the next installment of the franchise to realistically depict the accumulated damage, dirt, and debris resulting from offroad racing in the game.

Forza Horizon 6 Could Do Justice to the Dings and Dents from Its Offroad Races

The advanced engine enhancements in Forza Motorsport, which accurately replicate how light interacts with cars and surfaces, could also pave the way for the most remarkable damage system in the upcoming Forza Horizon installment. Although car damage has always been depicted in various forms within the franchise, even head-on collisions in Forza Horizon 5 result in mere minor dings and dents on the vehicles involved. Hence, incorporating Forza Motorsport's more comprehensive vehicle damage system would seamlessly complement the rough and exhilarating races typically found in its sister series.

Among the most notable features of Forza Motorsport is the game's ability to render damage, dirt, and debris that progressively accumulate on each car during a race. Contextually, the damaged areas of the cars exhibit dents and scratches, causing the paint to realistically chip and scratch after collisions. When combined with the ForzaTech engine's capability to naturally accumulate dirt and grime on a car's surface over time, these engine improvements would perfectly align with the off-road racing that prominently features in the Forza Horizon franchise.

By providing the cars in the upcoming Forza Horizon game with an equally astounding level of detail as their counterparts in Forza Motorsport, the open-world series would achieve its most visually breathtaking experience thus far. This could potentially result in the realistically portrayed vehicles overshadowing the undoubtedly remarkable setting of the next Forza Horizon installment.

Forza Motorsport can be played on PC and Xbox Series X/S.