Alongside franchises likeHaloandGears of War,Forzais a staple series both Xbox owners and gearheads can look forward to every year or so. The series did not release a new, mainline entry since 2018’sForza Horizon 4due to both the pandemic and the release of the Xbox Series X/S. However, it is back withForza Horizon 5and Xbox headPhil Spenceris touting the almost immediate success the game has seen.
Forza Horizon 5is the fifth entry in theForza Horizonseries and the twelth mainline release for theForzafranchise, which typically alternates between theHorizonandMotorsportsub-series. The game sees the titular car and music festival trade in the English countryside fromForza Horizon 4for the exotic locales of Mexico, from sun-soaked beaches to ancient Mayan temples to explore in some of the world’s best cars. Series developer Playground Games touted the map as the largest it has ever created for aHorizongame along with its new dynamic weather system.
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That said, Spencer’s focus on Twitter was to highlight the almost instantaneous launch day successForza Horizon 5experienced. The Xbox head said in his November 9 post the game had already surpassed 4.5 million players “across PC, cloud, and console” and peak concurrent players was 3x higher thanForza Horizon 4at the same point. He followed by saying it was the largestXbox Games Studioslaunch day release and thanked both players and Playground Games for its success.
Forza Horizon 5’s initial success can, in one way, be seen as reflecting a player base hungry for a newForzaafter an almost three-year wait. As mentioned above,Forza Horizon 4was the last in Playground and Turn 10 Studio’s annual release streak which started with 2011’sForza Motorsport 4. This allowedForzato be a constant on Xbox consoles while also catering to both simulator players and arcade players with the annual, alternating releases. It is worth asking, too, how much the growth of Xbox Game Pass played in helping expose PC and Xbox players to the game.
Forza Horizon 5is available for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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