Racing games have taken new heights over the last couple of decades, and have become more mainstream. Thanks to iconic games like the Need For Speed series and the Forza franchise, racing games are more serious now. The Forza brand is a force on its own for Xbox users, so much so that the logo alone has become memorable for players. Over the years the Forza games have been becoming popular because of how immersive they have gotten.
Not just for car enthusiasts, but for fans of racing games as well, which has allowed the series to be successful for Xbox. Although Forza Motorsport has its ups and downs, it's still been consistent. Forza Motorsport 7, being the latest linear release, faced issues and became overshadowed by the open-world spin-off of the series, called Forza Horizon. This left many players wondering if the series would return to its simulator roots. Thankfully, during the Summer Game Fest, a new Forza Motorsport entry was announced, which celebrates the origin of the Forza franchise. Hoping to avoid the mistakes of Forza Motorsport 7, this list should help make the eighth entry great.
5 Track Diversity
Forza Motorsport has always been about putting players on challenging tracks, that test their control and speed. This was something that separated Forza from other games in the same genre as Gran Turismo. However, in Forza Motorsport 7, the track selection was rather limited, even after the player did the "campaign". Many players were left with a bad taste because of that, assuming that more tracks would come in future DLCS, but didn't.
One of the main reasons why Forza Horizon 5 is a success story, is because of diverse it is when it comes to the tracks. Even though the Horizon entries are open-world and set in one location, they offered a lot to players for tracks. Each with different characteristics, being windy, straightaway, and everything in between. One of the main things that Forza Motorsport should do, is to give players more diverse tracks and increase the number of them. With different types of tracks, with the many cars, players can learn to race in distinct ways, which can help them win races.
4 Unlocking Cars
As mentioned before, Forza Motorsport 7 had a lot of issues, and one of them was how the players unlocked the cars. In older Forza Motorsport games, this aspect was more balanced, because players would get better cars just by unlocking them. On top of that, it would be more spaced out, and players felt like it was more rewarding. This aspect made Forza Motorsport 6 a better racing game than the seventh entry. Because players wouldn't unlock new cars after almost every race and would make them earn more.
This gave players more of a reason to try harder, and race more aggressively because the rewards were placed better. For Forza Motorsport 7, this became an issue because if players would win more races, they would unlock significantly better cars more often. This would make things less entertaining for players. For the next Forza Motorsport game, players should be able to unlock cars every so often and not give players superior cars so early.
3 Optimization
The Forza series, in general, have been some good-looking games to date, but from a technical perspective, they have suffered. This issue has plagued more than one Forza Motorsport title, but on the seventh release, it was more noticeable. Some complaints towards Forza Motorsport 7 was the state of the game when it launched. From bad loading times to dropping frames, everything about the racing game at launch had issues. Although years it's a different story, the damage is still done.
Even running on a powerful Xbox One, the issues were still causing problems. Forza Motorsport 7 like the other Forza games, works online too, the issue with that, is that the game did not operate well online at all times. Players would complain that they would disconnect from races often, and others would get game-breaking bugs. So, if Forza Motorsport wants to avoid these issues, making sure the game runs on the new hardware of the Xbox Series X/S is important. These issues are almost entirely gone in the Forza Horizon line of the franchise, so players can hope that optimization won't be an issue anymore.
2 Post-Launch Support
This is important for sports games and racing games because, in that world, things change often. For Forza Motorsport, it's very much the same case. It also helps when developers balance out the post-launch support as well. The issue with Forza Motorsport 7 is that it's two extremes, either not enough DLC, or too much. This can make players put down the game because cars that they want can be behind a paywall, or there's nothing new in several months.
Even though Forza Motorsport 7 would boast over five hundred cars, the game would often reward players with them. This causes players to go through all the cars quickly, leaving very little to earn. Forza Horizon 5 has thankfully solved this issue on its end, by releasing two or three cars for each update, which gives players the chance to come back often. If Forza Motorsport borrows this element from the open-world entry, players would be more active, and always earning cars because of the ongoing support.
1 Peripheral Compatibility
Playing racing games with a mouse, keyboard, or a controller is doable and makes the game easy, but playing with a steering wheel makes it immersive. The Forza games are great for this aspect because having a racing wheel allows players to race differently, and feel more connected to the game. Forza Motorsport 7 suffers issues in this department as well, with many players complaining their steering wheels often don't work.
Although not isolated to the seventh entry of the racing series, the older games did a better job of patching it up post-launch. While not as important as the other things featured in this list, however, more and more players are using these wheels and other accessories to play. For many reasons, like immersion as mentioned before, and a racing wheel can make players a lot better at driving. If Forza Motorsport wants to be a premier racer, then making these peripherals work at launch will make the game more fun, and challenging.
Forza Motorsport will available in 2023 on Xbox Series X/S, and PC.