Forza Horizon 5 Review (Xbox Series S)

by Jim Smale · November 29, 2021

This Forza Horizon 5 Review has us taking on breathtaking expeditions across the vibrant and ever-evolving open-world landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars.

Forza Horizon 5 Review Pros:

Gorgeous graphics.
101.6GB download size.
1000 Gamerscore.
Driving gameplay.
The opening sequence is where you race a handful of cars and get tips on controls.
Further tutorial pop-ups as you play.
Pick your starting car from a selection of 3.
Has a rewind feature.
Create your avatar and has full prosthetic and gender identity choices.
Six views including in car with highly detailed dashboards.
Can set the difficulty and race settings before each event.
Open world.
9 difficulties, driving assist preset, braking, steering, traction control, stability control, shifting, driving line, rewind and damage tire wear that affects bonus credits.
Colorblind support along with sliders for Deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia.
Subtitles on/off but you can also adjust the text size, keyword highlighting, and text background.
Controller settings – Invert axis and sensitivity sliders along with deadzone sliders, can rebind buttons, change how gears work, and also set the acceleration sensitivity.
Graphics mode – performance or quality.
Play how you want.
Seemless online integration.
The World is populated with Ai players using your friend’s list gamer tags.
Earn EXP and level up for rewards.
Roads will show up as highlighted when traveled on, earn rewards for driving all the roads.
Skill points are earned from doing tricks, racing, speed, and more. Use skill points to unlock unique rewards for each car.
Can set your own routes and have a driving line show on the roads.
EXP boards are hidden around and give an instant reward. They show on the map when you drive near them.
Full photo mode.
Your character is fully Voiced and a part of the proceedings.
Photo challenges.
Horizon adventure chapter is the main story and you unlock them by doing other events and earning accolade points.
Loyalty rewards for owning or playing the previous games.
Wheelspin and super Wheelspins give out random rewards.
Collect cars and fill up your garage with all the cars in a brand for rewards.
The accolade points chart will auto-complete as you do the objectives.
Free fast travel tokens to find in the world.
All set in Mexico.
Speed trap zone events where you race as fast as you can between two points. Supports leaderboards and you can earn 1 – 3 stars.
Race events can be done in solo, Co-op, PVP, rivals, and route creation.
A Festival map is a big colorful map and allows you to pick territories to play in which act as a racing discipline like street racing or off-road.
Objectives especially within the festival will have optional accolades to earn.
Gift drops appear in special barns that can be found where you get gifts and can send a car gift to – anyone, new players, returning players, a new hall of farmers, and community contributors.
Seasons are back with weather changes and events that earn points for rewards.

Forza Horizon 5 Review Cons:

Cannot skip the cutscenes.
Very overwhelming as the map fills with icons.
Gets way too addictive.
Not always clear how and where you buy cars.
Feels a lot like the last game in a new environment.
A lot of the dialogue is pure cheese.
Actually jumping into o line sessions still feels alien and isn’t very accommodating.
It costs a lot to unlock fast travel and even then you have to Google on what to do.

Forza Horizon 5:

Official website.

Developer: Turn 10

Publisher: Microsoft

Store Links –

Xbox

9/10
Graphics - 9/10
8/10
Sound - 8/10
9/10
Accessibility - 9/10
9/10
Length - 9/10
9/10
Fun Factor - 9/10

8.8/10

Summary

I can say very confidentially that Turn 10 has mastered the racing RPG genre like no other. Last game we got the weather changes affecting the courses and events and here they just build on that again, every iteration of Horizon feels substantial. I love how with the horizon games you can just play however you want, personally, I tend to do all the road discovery stuff then buy the house needed to unlock fast travel then do the races, I know some do racing then go back for road discovery clean up. No matter how you play it when the servers are up and running Horizon is a beautiful mash-up of games that is well worth investing time in. In crude terms think of Horizon as an orgy of car games as it takes from Burnout Paradise, Burnout, Fuel, Baja, Colin Mcrae and so much more. The amazing part is how they managed to put so much game in there and not sacrifice graphics, playability, or scope. Forza Horizon 5 is fucking fantastic.