It’s been six years since the last Forza Motorsport game, but after a longer hiatus than anybody’s been used to for the racing sim franchise, its return to the limelight is not far away now. With the upcoming Forza Motorsport, Turn 10 Studios is rebooting the series and promising a more comprehensive and authentic package than it has ever deliver- which, of course, is going to be an incredibly high bar to clear.
In past features, we’ve already covered quite a few key details about the game, but there’s still plenty that we haven’t covered yet. So, to that end, here, we’re going to talk about a few more important things that you should know about Forza Motorsport.
FEATURED MULTIPLAYER
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Multiplayer is always a central component of Forza games, and in Forza Motorsport, it’s going to be even more so. A lot of that will be down to Featured Multiplayer, which Turn 10 describes as a live, real-world, time-based mode that will see players participating in pre-defined live events. Essentially bringing together the Hoppers and Leagues modes from past instalments, Featured Multiplayer will have scheduled races that will take place at specific real-world times, imitating the feel of an actual weekend of racing event.
OPEN PRACTICE
Before the beginning of every Featured Multiplayer race, players will also be able to take part in Open Practice sessions, just as you’d expect from an actual racing weekend. Players will have between 5 and 20 minutes to drive through the track and get comfortable with both the track’s layout and the vehicle itself, Though of course, if you don’t want to spend too much time in Open Practice and would rather jump quickly to the next step, you will have the option to do that.
QUALIFY SESSIONS
The next step after Open Practice before a Featured Multiplayer race will be the Qualify session, which you can jump into at any time before the main event begins- and there will be a bit more at stake here than during Open Practice. You’ll be given a limited number of laps through the course to record your best time, and how you perform will determine your starting position in the Featured Race. Entries for Featured Races close five minutes before they begin.
SPEC SERIES
Spec Series is one of two different event types that Forza Motorsport will offer with its Featured Races, and will be much more geared towards casual play. Here, every car will be tuned automatically by the game itself, and all of them will be identical on that front, so that all participants will be on even footing. Though differences in player levels won’t account for much, you will still be able to earn Car XP in Spec Series races.
OPEN SERIES
If you really want to see the results of all of your labour with tuning and progression, Open Series events will be far more to your liking. Unlike Spec Series races, in Open Series races, as long as your car meets the prescribed class requirement, you can bring it to the track with whatever kind of tuning or customizations you want. According to Turn 10, Open Series events will rotate through all available classes on a weekly basis.
PITTING
Featured Multiplayer races in Forza Motorsport will also include a variety of pitting features that players will have to keep in mind. While the shorter races obviously won’t require any pitting, in longer events, you’ll need to refuel your car, or maybe even have its tires changed. Some particular longer events will, in fact, have prebaked pitting requirements for all players.
OVERHAULED RACE REGULATIONS
Turn 10 says it has also radically overhauled the Forza Race Regulations system for Forza Motorsport (or FRR), which is essentially the system that ensures that cheating and dirty racing is kept to a minimum, and competition remains fair. From track cutting to purposeful collisions to various other infractions, courtesy of machine learning, FRR will be able to identify thousands of possible offences, as opposed to hundreds in Forza Motorsport 7. Based on the severity of infractions, penalties and race disqualifications will be handed out as well.
MORE FEATURED MULTIPLAYER DETAILS
As a live, ongoing mode with a rotating selection of pre-defined events, Featured Multiplayer is, of course, conceptually very intriguing- but how exactly will it be structured on a race-to-race basis? Turn 10 says players will always have at least one event available that they’ll be to join in each series, with new events starting roughly every 30 minutes, each having varied parameters, including tracks, series, weather, and time of day.
PRIVATE MULTIPLAYER
Of course, Forza Motorsport will also let you set up private multiplayer races for a much more custom made experience. In Private races, everything from the length of the race and the track to the race rules and the car class can be decided by the host, while there will also be multiplayer presets on offer for event rules. Meanwhile, players will also be able to play a variety of modes, including Circuit Race, Timed Race, Multi-Class, and Meetups. Other settings that you’ll be able to tinker with in private lobbies include pit stops, damage, collisions, penalties, weather, time of day, and more.
CAR PRICING CHANGES
Forza Motorsport is making some notable changes to how cars will be priced in game. In Forza Motorsport 7, the costliest cars could cost multiple millions of credits, but in the upcoming game, even the most expensive car will be under a million credits. Turn 10 says the purpose of this change is to allow the game to be more focused on trying different cars and then building the one you like through a much more robust building system, which, of course, is now also game-wide, rather than being sequestered in single player or multiplayer.
NO SPLITSCREEN
One decision that Turn 10 Studios has made with Forza Motorsport’s multiplayer that’s bound to disappoint a fair few people is the lack of splitscreen multiplayer at launch. According to creative director Chris Esaki, that’s because of Turn 10’s “heavy investment in pushing new graphical features” and the “complete overhaul” of the game’s rendering engine. Given that the studio has specifically said that the game won’t feature splitscreen at launch, we’re assuming it’ll be added at some point after release- though how long that’ll be remains to be seen.
TRACKS
Though Turn 10 will continue adding new tracks to Forza Motorsport once it is out, at launch, the game will feature a selection of 20 tracks, out of which 5 will be new introductions to the series. Those five new tracks are Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Grand Oak Raceway, Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit, Eaglerock Speedway, and Hakone Circuit. Meanwhile, plenty of familiar tracks from past instalments will, of course, also be returning, including the likes of Road America, Silverstone Circuit, Suzuka Circuit, Nürburgring GP (which will also add Nordschleife for free in Spring 2024), Mugello Circuit, Maple Valley, and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, among others.
TIRE IMPROVEMENTS
Turn 10 has already stressed quite a few times that Forza Motorsport is going to boast a 48x tire fidelity improvement over past games, but there are other improvements to speak of on this front as well. For instance, while tires in Forza Motorsport 7 just had just one point of contact on the surface that moved at 60 cycles per second, the upcoming Forza Motorsport’s tires have eight points of contact with the surface at 360 cycles per second. In simple words, that means better drivability, and much more realistic behaviour of tires based on what sort of surface you’re driving on. Additionally, players will also be able to select different tire compounds to suit which type of event you’re about to race in.
MINIMUM AND RECOMMENDED SPECS
Forza Motorsport, like pretty much all of its predecessors, is being billed as a technical showcase- but exactly what kind of a PC will you need to run the game? Well, on minimum settings, you’ll need either an i5-8400 or a Ryzen 5 1600, along with either GTX 1060 or an RX 5500 XT, and an 8 GB RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, you’ll need either an i5-11600k or a Ryzen 5 5600X, along with either an RTX 2080 Ti or an RX 6800 XT, and a 16 GB RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need an SSD and 130 GB of free storage.
ULTRA SPECS
If you really want to push Forza Motorsport to its limits and get the most technically impressive experience possible, the hardware demands will be much more, well, demanding. To run the game on ultra settings, you’ll need either an i7-11700k or a Ryzen 5 5800X, along with either an RTX 4080 or an RX 7900XT, and 16 GB of RAM. Of course, like with the minimum and recommended specs, you’ll also need an SSD and 130 GB of free storage space.
