The new Forza Motorsport game is “not a car collecting game” but a “car progression game”, at the Turn 10 exhibition
With less than one month to go until release, Turn 10 has now shown off more gameplay of the new Forza Motorsport game in its latest monthly Forza stream.
Although the most interesting thing from the demo is how the developers of Turn 10 positioned Forza Motorsport not as a car collecting game, despite the massive car roster containing over 500 cars at launch.
“It’s not about collecting cars,” said Dan Greenwalt, general manager of Turn 10 Studios. “It’s not about collecting cars over time, it’s about collecting cars that interest you.
“For you this might be these 10 cars, for me this might be (a collection of) 10 different cars. What will build community is our ability to talk about that, discuss that, form opinions, build skills, and compete.
The comment is likely a response to the way Forza Motorsport is designed.
For context, every car you own has a car mastery level that you need to increase once you drive it. You gain XP by how quickly you go around corners, which is measured against the game’s best theoretical pre-calculation based on the car’s current setup. Unlocking performance upgrades requires increasing the vehicle’s mastery level. So it’s a PG car in a way, but more restrained. You should do this for all cars, you can’t buy a new car and expect to start tuning and upgrading it right from the start.
Furthermore, game director Chris Esaki said that this change in game design, where it’s not about cramming a garage of all the cars, but about getting to know more intimately each car you drive by having to dedicate time behind the wheel, is part of the reason why Forza wasn’t called Motorsport in Forza Motorsport 8.
“We’ve completely rethought everything about what Forza Motorsport is all about,” he said. “This means reimagining core gameplay, and all of our design philosophies that allow or help (players) fall in love with cars, through the power of gameplay, community building, skill and competition.
“We’ve basically gone from Forza Motorsport 1 to 7, I like to think of it, and it was really an experiment about collecting cars. We’ve moved into this new era of Forza Motorsport where it’s about car evolution.
“With all the new physics, it’s a completely new game. Everything feels new. With all the new modes, all the new features, and this new meta that goes from car collection to car evolution, I really think we’re in a whole new era of Forza Motorsport. And that’s why We dropped the number.”
Forza Motorsport really wants to move away from its past until it drops the number (much to the dismay of historians and people searching for the original Forza Motorsport game online). Turn 10 doubles down on their design decisions. Now hopefully fans and players understand it and can judge the game based on this new philosophy, because judging it as a car collecting game like the likes of Gran Turismo, but with a built-in grind that prevents you from modifying every car you buy, seems like a bad time.
Forza Motorsport (2023) will launch with over 500 cars and 20 tracks, with more free updates, including the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
Forza Motorsport (2023) will be released on October 10 for Xbox Series It will be available on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass on day one of launch.
