They mentioned using photogrammetry to capture the real scenery! Nice! It’s not just for Microsoft Flight Simulator anymore.
They used photogrammetry in FH4 too. I think even FH3.
Ohhh I like this. 3 was my first, and the variety of vistas in that one is something I thought was sorely missing from 4, so I’m glad to see them going somewhere with more varied terrain again.
Good interview.
I’m surprised that Horizon 5 will also have seasons.
Digital Foundry also took a look at the presentation in more detail and talk about it. I haven’t watched this one yet.
Pictures of all the map areas:
From a Living Desert: Exploring Forza Horizon 5’s Biomes and Seasons - Xbox Wire
And now the whole map is revealed:
vrcb4212bdg71.jpg (3840×2160) (redd.it)
The volcano & highway remind me of Horizon 1 in a good way.
Oh nice. That’s summer season too. I forgot they were going to keep around 4 seasons again. That’s really cool.
11 minutes of gameplay.
That is looking real sweet. I hope they do what they did with 4 and end up bringing a lot of the cars from the previous game.
Loved this off road bit :) November 9th.
Replaying FH4, something that I wish (but I don’t have high hopes for) is a rethinking of the UI and organization of all the ways the player has to engage with the game. There is so much going on that you don’t even know where to click. It’s a clusterfuck of engagement
-There is GAAS-style weekly playlist of races, challenges and events to complete, with the weekly rewards, and an extra prize for doing the 4 weeks/season of the month.
-Inside the playlist, you also have the weekly forzathon events, and the smaller daily challenges list.
-Doing the playlists it seems also gives you backstage passes, which can be traded by selected cars.
-There are 40 separate categories you level up, individually. Carpg, indeed.
-There is a separate list of challenges and events called start card that seems like a series of rewards for long term goals when leveling up.
-The new Super7 mode, creating and playing user made tracks, trackmania style. There is of course, some kind of list of challenges to do (weekly?).
-Then you have the online modes, both ranked and unranked, with different game modes inside.
-There is the BR mode they did.
-You also have the user made events, including custom routes.
-You have the photo collecting thing, the Horizon Promo.
-You can engage in the rivals mode, which have different subcategories, like monthly rivals and exhibition rivals.
-And finally, you have the open world map, the main dish, with almost 20 different types of icons for different types of races, events and incidental challenges, Ubisoft style.
The only way I can make sense of all that (when I remember to), is to de-select everything on the main map, and then filter for only one type of event. So if I’m in the mood to do speed events, I get in the fastest car I have, and filter for only speed events on the map, then go run on that map for a while. It’s not a bad system, I just have to remember to use the filters to only display one thing at a time so my brain doesn’t get overwhelmed with choices.
Right, I find that issue is getting common in games as post-release content and seasons and modes all build up. I’ve struggled with Call of Duty and Ubigames as well, just trying to find how to play the thing I want.
I guess the issue is the double whammy. It doesn’t have only the Ubisoft filled map, nor the long list of events/challenges/weekly things of GAAS, but both.
If you haven’t played in a long time, or you’re a first-time player just now starting it, the beginning is a crazy firehose of notifications and options. A bunch of free cars get added to your garage and a zillion notifications for events and challenges. It’s wacky.
And no real structured progression to steer you through it. At least the Ubi games have marked story quests, or maybe a need for specific resources to craft something. The FH games have the Showcase events and that’s about it.
My memory is a bit hazy at this point, but I think that first year in FH4 does a good job of pointing you to a bunch of things. As you work your way through the first four seasons, they put you in a Ford RS200 for the off-road event, which is just pure joy. And I think they have you do the first mission of the stunt driver event during that first year. And they introduce the speed events, the drift events, etc. At least at launch I felt like I had good guidance on the main structured progressions I could follow.
I wonder if the game introduces all the post-launch new additions after the first year, or during it? (Things like the Battle Royale mode, Super7 mode, etc)
Funny that I’ve been playing the game for sooooooo many hours and I still haven’t unlocked Horizon Promo, where you get to take photos of cars. I’m not really sure how to, since there’s so much to do, and the game never guided me on how to unlock that during the first year of the game.
Man, I’m still tooling around in FH3. I think I’m eventually just going to have to set it aside, as I did FH2. There’s just too much stuff going on there to really complete, which is kind of tough for a completionist like me. But I’ll never see all the cool stuff in the newer games if I can’t move on at some point.
The Horizon games don’t trigger the completionist impulse in me at all. I suppose because there’s just a firehose of content. I view it as something I can choose to do if I want, and go in and out of the games. I never felt even a twinge of wanting to finish stuff in this series.
Btw, it sounds like Halo Infinite might be the same way. I just saw a headline that they’ll have 18-19 hours worth of daily challenges. Firehose of content confirmed!