Forza Horizon 5 adds audio features requested by streamers

Forza Horizon 5 will be much more streamer-friendly than its predecessors. Streamer mode has been expanded and the audio options updated.

Let's take a look at the upgrades!

The problems with previous Forza games

Before now, it wasn't possible to completely disable in-game music. If you turned the radio off, you would still hear the music from the festival site as you drove past. At the beginning and end of races, there's also music.

You could turn the music down to 1 but not all the way to 0, so there was always faint noise that could be picked up on by algorithms. The only safe way was to mute all the sound from the game itself and play freely licensed music to accompany clips.

This caused problems for streamers and video content creators who were frequently on the receiving end of automated copyright strikes.

Forza Horizon 5 and an expanded streamer mode

The Playground Games team have worked with the Xbox Game Studios original compositions team to create music that streamers can freely use. They've also commissioned and licensed some tracks from Hospital Records for streamers. Putting the game in streamer mode will prevent any copyright protected music from playing in the game.

While the Playground Games team can't make any guarantees that YouTube and Twitch bots will never pick up on anything they think is copyright material, they do want to reassure streamers. They also want streams and clips of the game to maintain the atmosphere the sound engineers have designed.

Volume settings in-game

It's a minor detail to many but the volume sliders in the game will now go all the way to zero. Whether you wish to mute the GPS, the radio, or car horns, this will be fully possible.

It all adds up to a much better experience for people producing or watching streamed content. We're glad to see this and hope other studios take note!