Forza Motorsport entering polishing phase next year

Forza Motorsport was shown off at the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase back in June, with a gameplay reveal and a spring 2023 release window. Since then, there have been no updates or new gameplay footage released.

Forza Motorsport in “full production”

During September’s Forza Monthly, Forza Motorsport General Manager Dan Greenawalt and creative director Chris Esaki provided an update on Forza Motorsport’s development.

Explaining the different phases of production, Esaki revealed that conceptual work on Forza Motorsport started in 2019, with the project envisioned as a “reimagination” of Forza for a new generation.

“We went to the roots, we looked at every system, and we even looked at new design philosophies,” said Esaki. “We’re extremely happy with our vision and feature sets that we’re bringing together.

According to Greenawalt, Forza Motorsport is in full production, with the team aiming to enter the final polishing stage “sometime” in 2023. This critical stage where any discovered issues are ironed out “takes a lot of time,” leaving fans wondering if Forza Motorsport will still make its target spring 2023 release.

“Polish is really critical,” Greenawalt explained. “If you’ve got a massive game like Motorsport and a lot of new systems that you’ve been rethinking, that’s a lot of surface area to polish. And it takes a lot of time, so you’ve got to focus that down. We’re deep in production now and we’ll be heading to that polish phase sometime in the new year.”

Still on track for spring 2023 release

With Forza Motorsport not entering the polishing stages until 2023, some fans have been wondering if a spring 2023 release window is still achievable.

However, at the end of the interview, show host Leah Alexandra confirmed that Forza Motorsport is still on track for a spring 2023 release, but a delay could still be announced before then. This means Forza Motorsport is expected to release between March and June 2023.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be a long wait before we see more of Forza Motorsport. Esaki ended the segment saying that Turn 10 will share what the team has been working on “in a few months” and encouraged fans to “sit tight,” so we probably won’t get any new details until the end of this year at the earliest or early next year before Forza Motorsport launches in spring 2023. Esaki teased that 2023 will be “the year of Forza Motorsport.”