The Downfall of Forza Motorsport

Studios keep trying to reinvent the wheel when all we want is a fun career mode, good physics, and no lies

Here's a small addition to my oddly specific tech issue with this game. The game did actually have a failsafe for a case like mine, where it tries to install the missing components itself. But of course this, like many other things in this game, did not work. So I had to fix it myself after some messing around. Truthfully, I would've never made a big deal out of this had it only been multiplayer related. But I couldn't even do some simple offline races. The fact I can pay up to 100 bucks for a game and it won't even let me past the title screen for uninstalling an internet browser is insane.

The most depressing aspect of the game for me, is how easy anyone can come up with better solutions for problems with better ideas. Your proposed progression system is a perfect example.

Here's a suggestion for bonding a player to their car: 1st: Don't throw cars after them like cheap candy. 2nd: Let people unlock cars through events to make them feel earned. And I mean racing events, not this time limited stuff. 3rd: Provide awesome and challenging events in different categories. Can be divisions, but also combinations of drive trains, body styles and class restrictions. Once people have a good reason to use a car and success with it, it will be special to them.

This video was Built From The Ground Up.

My biggest criticism is the career mode. It's unironically a cure for insomnia. No races for racing cars, the good idea but badly done upgrade system. I just don't build up a relationship with my cars because you can only ever use them for one championship with a maximum of 5-6 races and then leave them half upgraded and start all over again with a different car.

The biggest flaw with this game is that it's just plain boring.

I genuinely feel like the state of the game's release came as the result of a poor decision made by management by either Microsoft or Turn 10 or both. Because I really believe that the game did get scrapped at some point and the developers trying to scramble of what was left to form a game that was playable enough with the time that they had left.

Words cannot describe how disappointed I am with this game. I agree with all the points in the video. One addition I’ve noticed though is the ultra aggressive AI in offline mode, who will ram you off the track and generally treat you like you’re not there. Has anyone else experienced this?

Sadly, I knew early on. After Forza 4 and the first Horizon had released, there was an interview with some of the programmers that were working on Forza5. They were asked about what they were doing about the sound for the new cars coming to the game. One programmer answered that they had enough sounds collected and could manipulate them to create new sounds. That was when I understood that these guys were just programmers and not motor sports enthusiasts. Sure enough, Forza5 was not as good as what was expected after the milestone that Forza4 was.

I hate how this game's UI feels like a mobile game. It couldn't have less personality even if it tried which is a shame as 6 and prior had distinct styles on their UI and overall presentation.

You have to give it to them though, it's pretty impressive that they've managed to win an award for Accessibility with a game that's barely playable.

The only thing more disappointing is my driving...

The Forza meat riders are insane in the online groups. “It’s a new game of course it’ll have bugs” “Don’t like it? Don’t play it.” “Make your own game” Like bro. 6 years of dev time 20 years experience 12 games of experience And they can’t fuckin get it right? Customization system is shit. I don’t need to spend hours learning to drive every car I want to upgrade. Especially when the PI system keeps you from max upgrading a car for every race anyway, like it always did. Clutch system is shit. Performance H pattern cars shift like a 30 year old pickup. And DCT, DSG, auto cars (mk5 Supra, ford gt, Lexus lfa) all shift with stock trans as if they’re H pattern cars. Missing 470 cars from FM7 Missing tracks Campaign is stupid. Why drip feed content? It’s not for retention cause FM7 had me still coming back to it years later. FM has me not playing it till more gets added cause I’ve already beat the main campaign. And since I can’t upgrade any cars I want, when I want, I don’t want to stay on the game grinding each car for hours just to make a drift/drag car Missing drag and drift features Missing open air field lobby Have to back out to main menu to change cars when in free play, while FM7 was instantly in the pre lobby) The literal only upgrade is the physics. Everything else is either the same as previous, or a downgrade. This game is a disappointment

Forza started my xbox adventure, it has been my go to game for the last 15 years. I understood the reasons behind fm5 and have been happy with fm6 and still found thousands of hours of fun in fm7. I am genuinely disappointed to say that with fm8 my adventure has ended. Its so far removed from the previous games that i just cannot find the same sustained enjoyment anymore. It was fun while it lasted but i went back to gran turismo and i have to say , its bloody fantastic , feels more like im playing fm4 again.

As someone over 50 who’s played racing games since the mid/late 70s, there are certain stand-out moments of when the racing genre has created “wow” moments (Pole Position, Out Run, 3DO Need for Speed, and of course GT as some examples). I didn’t play Forza until #2, but when I did it felt simply like a GT clone. Forza improved for #3, and then truly became its own in Forza 4. Since then it’s been all downhill (I’m surprised you didn’t mention the severely flawed handling of #5, and not much improved in 6). Forza 7 was simply the worst of the GT/Forza games for a variety of reasons. While this new one scales back a bit, I disagree about the handling - I think it’s the one thing they got right. The cars (mostly FWD) that exhibit under steer should in fact have some understeer. However, there are so many other head-scratching decisions made (over 6 years) that truly fail to move the genre forward…the upgrades for one (really, there are zero new options for upgrades and tuning, and why can’t I change the wheel size now?), the system to upgrade the car (which, seems worst in Rivals mode, as I need to drive 100 laps before I get to test a new upgraded car to fully compete),the lack of embracing qualifying/pitstops, or a true race weekend feel for single player mode (see F1 series as an example), and lack of tracks (no Nordschleife? Is this the first simcade game in the last 20 years to not include it day one?). The graphics are such a mixed bag on Series S (I play in visual 30fps mode)… the replays are unbearable with blocky background trees, odd wheel lockups under hard braking. The interior views while driving somehow seem dim while looking out the windshield like it’s got tint on, and the hand/wheel animation is straight from 15 years ago. No changes made to the replay mechanics or photo mode (even in Forzavista). And I’m not the type to get into multiplayer, but decided to give it a go…what a waste of my time to go thru qualifying, building a safety score (highest rating) and waiting for a race to start only to get rammed from behind at the start). Forza 8 is truly a disappointment. Back to F123 now.

The 21 sec penalty along with "We've been DQ'd" has me dying XD

The biggest flaw with this game is the penalty system online constantly getting penalised when someone else hits me

One other thing not mentioned in the video is how little you can customise and build a car even compared to Horizon 5. No Anti-Lag, no track width adjustment, only 6-Speed race gearboxes... its not just the comparison to GT where its falling down, its the comparison to its sister game. (And let's be hoenst they could have taken every feature straight copy and paste from Horizon in terms of the cars and modifications and nobody would have batted an eye)

18:04 thanks for using my footage of FM4 and great work on this video! 💯 Funnily enough, we still play FM4 online weekly. The new Forza Motorsport is a huge disappointment and quite an insult to fans of the series. I have my issues with things that aren't that important to some, but to me, they are. Such as a split second loading screen when switching between players in a replay! As someone who has commentated races in FM7, I wasn't shocked that they recycled this unnecessary element into FM8. It's been the same since FM1 from 2005. On FM7, I went as far as using another Xbox account on another console and spectated from 2 accounts so that I could capture both and change players on the other account while it wasn't being shown to everyone. This is how I achieved smooth transitions when changing between players while spectating.