Forza Motorsport and Turn 10 Studios had been quiet for a while.
Then came Developer_Direct, Xbox's update on titles that are coming soon. The stream gave us a deeper look at what Turn 10 calls the "most technically advanced racing game ever made".
This is Forza Motorsport, and it will be bigger than ever.
The key numbers
Let's waste no time and get to the big numbers of Forza Motorsport.
Turn 10 has confirmed there will be more than 500 cars in the upcoming title, with over 100 of them new to the Motorsport franchise.
Along with all those cars there will be more than 800 upgrades to make from bodywork to basically everything under the hood.
There will be 20 "environments", which probably means tracks. That's not a great number, but multiple layouts are promised, along with five new-to-Motorsport locations including the epic Kyalami.
It's not great given that Gran Turismo 7 launched with 33 circuits and even more variations of those, but post-launch support will hopefully add more into the game.
Everything will be able to run at 4K 60 fps as promised, with real-time ray tracing even when out on circuit.
Big promises for single-player
While menus and gameplay were not featured in this look at Forza Motorsport, we did get word on the single-player experience.
It will be an "all-new, car building focused single-player" for Forza Motorsport. This should provide plenty of entertainment for players, and promises that old Road To Glory style journey that should hopefully see us take some standard road cars and turn them into racing monsters!
Turn 10 has promised a "more fun and rewarding driving experience". This will come from their revised and enhanced physics simulation, which is boasted to be bigger than FM 5, 6, & 7 combined. But it will also come from the visuals.
As we mentioned, in-race ray tracing will be available, but there is more than just that. The team at Turn 10 has created contextual damage & dirt build-up for cars, creating dirt patterns that match airflow over the car, and damage as far down as paint chips that are more realistic than ever.
All this, along with dynamic time and weather that includes track temperatures, wet surfaces, and even rubbering-in and Forza Motorsport is shaping up to be a dream.
There is just one issue though...
Release date
Forza Motorsport will be racing on to Xbox Series X|S and PC, but Turn 10 is still not giving us a date for this stellar offering.
That's a worry for fans, as other titles on show at Developer_Direct were happy to list release dates as late as April.
Previously the window for Forza Motorsport had been Spring, which is quite a big window to hit but Turn 10 didn't even commit to that at Developer_Direct, which certainly raises more questions for fans.
While everything sounds great, we still didn't see any menus or gameplay. It's definitely a worry.