Just as everyone had expected, Forza Horizon 3 has been announced at this year’s Microsoft E3 Conference. This will (obviously) be the third installment from Playground Games and the ninth addition to the Forza franchise. Forza Horizon focuses on open world racing and pays a lot of attention to the street culture of the motoring world as they race around exotic international settings. This time around the stage will be set in Australia with the biggest roster of cars the Horizon franchise has ever seen:
Set in Australia
After visiting Colorado and southern Europe the Horizon Festival now makes its way to Australia. The new map is double the size of the one seen in Horizon 2 and gives players access to environments such as the Outback, rainforests, coastal regions and urban cities and features many tourist attractions including the Twelve Apostles. The team went through great lengths to create the imagery by using techniques such as taking a custom 12K HDR camera rig to capture the sky to create a 24-hour timelapse video with thousands of photos.
The Garage
Forza is known for its diverse selection of licensed cars but according to the trailer, players will be treated to an initial roster of 350 unique vehicles such as the Ariel Nomad, Ferrari FXX K, some hardcore performance trucks (including Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst’s Mustang powered Ford Ranger) and of course the Lamborghini Centenario.
Customisation also seems to be a new element to the game as some wide body kits can be spotted on models such as the Nissan GT-R and BMW M4 which is not necessarily new to the Forza franchise but never before has it been seen in this effect. Body kit manufacturers such as Rocket Bunny and Liberty Walk have been confirmed as contributors to the game. Barn finds also make a return to the game although the models have not yet been named.
The Festival
Every Horizon game has been set around a music festival, before you were merely a participant but this time around players have been put in charge of the entire event. Decisions such as festival location and expansion and music genres with the main goal being to attract as many fans as possible. Forza Horizon 3 builds on this concept through the Horizon Blueprint.
Horizon Blueprint
The blueprint gets players to create custom races in which they can set unique routes and weather conditions, dictate participating classes and provide a name and poster for it. These events will be uploaded to the online world where other players will be able to access it. The concept isn’t exactly new as we have seen a very similar system in 2013’s GTA V.
Multiplayer
Forza has always had a prevalent online community which has been significantly building since the implementation of the franchise. With Horizon 3, players are greeted by the most socially interactive experience to date thanks to the re-addition of drivatars which you as the player can now hire and fire to manage your music festival of which the results will be based on their performance.
Play Anywhere with Cross Play is also confirmed for Forza Horizon 3 meaning that if you purchase it for your Xbox One you will also be able to use it on your Windows 10 PC and the online community of Xbox and PC will be conjoined. Through this the new four-player co-op becomes a lot more interesting as that you can complete the entire campaign on your own or with friends around the world.
Forza Horizon 3 will be available on the 27th September 2016 but can be pre-ordered as of today from the Xbox Live store. Prices start at R999 for the standard edition and work their way up to R1 899 for the Ultimate edition.