The online servers for two Forza Horizon games, Forza Horizon 1 and Forza Horizon 2, will be shutting down forever starting August 22, 2023. The Forza Horizon games are a spin-off of the core Forza Motorsport franchise, though the Horizon titles have been more popular in recent years.
Whereas the Forza Motorsport games are more traditional racing sims, the Forza Horizon games are open world racers with a focus on environmental destruction and arcade action. All five Forza Horizon games that have been released so far have earned rave reviews from critics, with developer Playground Games clearly having found a winning formula for success. But while fans can still enjoy the online services for Forza Horizon 3, Forza Horizon 4, and Forza Horizon 5, they will soon be unable to do so for the first two games in the long-running racing game series.
All online services for Forza Horizon 1 and Forza Horizon 2 will cease on August 22, meaning players will lose access to multiplayer, leaderboards, and user-generated content. Needless to say, this will seriously hurt the value of the first two Forza Horizon games, as their online functionality was a key component to their popularity to begin with. Some Forza Horizon series achievements will become inaccessible as well. The good news is that both games will still be playable in single-player.
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The original Forza Horizon game released in 2012 as an Xbox 360 exclusive, whereas Forza Horizon 2 released in 2014 for both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The games were two of the last pure Xbox exclusives, as they came out before Microsoft started bringing all its first-party Xbox games to PC.
Even with both the original Forza Horizon and its sequel shutting down their online servers forever, it seems unlikely that the games will draw all that many players in their twilight hours. After all, both of these Forza Horizon games have been delisted, making it impossible for one to buy them through the Microsoft Store or play them through Xbox Game Pass. The only way one will be able to play these games before their online services are shut down on August 22 is if they already own them digitally or if they have a physical copy lying around.
Xbox achievement hunters who want to make sure they get all the achievements possible will definitely want to try to squeeze in some time to revisit the first two Forza Horizon games between now and August. In the meantime, other Forza fans can continue playing the more recent Forza Horizon games and can look forward to the launch of the new Forza Motorsport in October.
Forza Horizon is available for Xbox 360, while Forza Horizon 2 is available for both Xbox 360 and Xbox One.