We are closing in on Forza Motorsport at last.
It has been nearly three years since the Xbox & PC title was announced, and the game is still not here. However, we know a lot about the rebirth of Turn 10 Studios' challenger to Gran Turismo.
Here's everything we know so far about Forza Motorsport.
Latest news - Turn 10 removes cars from base Forza Motorsport game
Forza Motorsport will feature over 500 cars - but not all of them will be in the base game.
Turn 10 has removed six cars previously advertised for the base game including racecars such as the 2021 Cadillac #31 Whelen Racing DPi-V.R and 2019 Ginetta #6 Team LNT Ginetta G60-LT-P1.
These will presumably be sold as DLC, but Turn 10 hasn't confirmed this yet.
Forza Motorsport reportedly delayed to second half of 2023
After the spring release window was removed at Developer_Direct, industry insider Jeff Grubb claims that Forza Motorsport is delayed until the second half of 2023.
In a podcast, Grubb says Forza Motorsport will "slip later into the year and probably won’t be the first half of the year.”
Turn 10 reveals key details
At the latest Developer_Direct for Xbox's upcoming lineup, Turn 10 Studios took centre stage.
Some key details for Forza Motorsport were revealed to fans at long last.
We now know there will be 500 cars at launch, including over 100 that are new to the Motorsport franchise.
Release date
Unfortunately, the latest reveal of Forza Motorsport did not give us a release date.
Revealed at E3 in July 2020, it is becoming an unbearable wait for this game.
In late 2022, Xbox and Turn 10 gave us a release window of Spring 2023. However, in the most recent showing of the game that was changed to "coming 2023".
Does that mean the game has once again been pushed back? We don't know, but it is certainly frustrating for fans. Since then, Jeff Grubb has claimed Forza Motorsport is delayed until the second half of the year, but Microsoft and Turn 10 have not confirmed this yet.
Platforms
Forza Motorsport will be released on Xbox Series X|S and PC. It will also be playable on Xbox One through the Xbox Cloud Gaming included in Game Pass Ultimate.
However, there won't be a native Xbox One release due to the incredible detail and scale of the game.
Forza Motorsport will run at 4K/60fps on Xbox Series X and 1080p/60fps on Xbox Series S. PC players will certainly be able to squeeze even more out of Forza Motorsport if they have the hardware to do it.
Gameplay
Thanks to recent showcases, we have some good information about gameplay for Forza Motorsport, but there is still no long-form gameplay reveal or even a glimpse of a menu.
There are some huge handling and physics updates to the game. Turn 10 claims the leap forward is bigger than any previous, claiming "the advances we’ve made in our physics simulation, which are greater than Forza Motorsport 5, 6, and 7 combined".
This would be huge for everyone, but might make pad-players at a disadvantage as increased realism always favours those with a wheel.
Turn 10 has greatly improved the tyre model for Motorsport. Increasing the amount and frequency of data the game will process. This will hugely impact handling and should make Forza Motorsport the most realistic instalment of the franchise.
These will be key as there is also a fully dynamic world with Forza Motorsport. This doesn't just mean time and weather, but also the track surface.
The track can get rubbered in, washed out with rain only for a dry line to appear, and temperatures fluctuate. All of which will impact your racing.
There will be in-race ray tracing, which is something Gran Turismo 7 doesn't offer, which is a real trump card for those who want visual realism.
Turn 10 has also created a damage model that includes dirt build-up based on airflow over the car and even paint flaking off in the proper direction after contact.
Cars
Speaking of cars, we now know that the Forza Motorsport car list will be HUGE.
There will be more than 500 cars at launch for Forza Motorsport, beating the 420-odd that Gran Turismo 7 had to offer.
This includes more than 100 that are new to the Motorsport series, which is great to see. While modern cars can be tricky to license, it sounds like Turn 10 has been able to get some of the more recent models into the game along with classics and thoroughbred racers.
Several new cars making their Forza Motorsport debut were shown in the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase trailer, from the Nissan 370Z Nismo and Audi RS E-Tron GT, to the Brabham BT62 and Koenigsegg Jesko.
Tracks
At Developer_Direct Turn 10 Studios confirmed there would be 20 "environments" in Forza Motorsport. Whether this means countries or just styles of track we don't know, but it is likely to just mean circuit locations. That would be a shame as it is considerably smaller than hoped.
Tracks are the world that you inhabit in racing games, and limiting their number is not a good thing.
We got a closer look at Kyalami, which is one of five new circuits for the Motorsport series, and given that the South Africa track is missing from a lot of the more popular racing titles this is a big win for Forza Motorsport.
There will be multiple layouts of circuits, but the classics like Spa, Monza, and Silverstone, if included, are unlikely to give much variety here.
Every track in Forza Motorsport is rebuilt from the ground up using photogrammetry and 3D material scans. Turn 10 stated they gathered 3 TB per track when building these circuits, which is a huge amount.