The latest Forza Horizon 5 “Let’s ¡Go!” dev stream has developers Playground Games divulging many details of its upcoming open-world racing game, in particular its multi-player features.
A lot of the features you might recognise from Forza Horizon 4 will return, but some has been revamped and been given other names as well.
Eliminator, the battle royale mode added to Forza Horizon 4 post-launch will now be included straight out of the box on launch. As weird as the idea of becoming the last car standing and the combat is replaced by impromptu races, the devs mentioned how it’s actually the most popular mode in Forza Horizon 4, enough for it to make a return.
Eliminator in Forza Horizon 5 should play similar to its previous form, with some tweaks. For one, your starter level 1 car is replaced from the Mini Cooper to the classic Volkswagen Beetle, to be in tune with its new setting of Mexico where the little bug car is very prominent in the local car culture there. The Mercedes-AMG One, one of two cover cars for this title, will also be available in Eliminator.
Eliminator is one of the four modes housed under the new Horizon Open (previously known as Horizon Online Adventure and Team Adventure). Eliminator, alongside Open Racing, Open Drifting and Playground Games game modes reside under this umbrella.
Open Racing is the usual racing lobby which includes the four kinds of races (Road Racing, Dirt Racing, Cross Country, Street Scene).
Open Drifting, previously Drift Adventure, is also a launch feature now similar to Eliminator. Playground Games are the silly game modes where you do stuff like capturing flags and holding a crown but should include more non-team modes alongside the usual team-based affair.
All the modes under Horizon Open has been toned down in competitive-ness, interestingly enough. There are no skill-based matchmaking, and you won’t be any instances where you will be penalised for not coming in first (or in team races, your team didn’t do a good enough job despite you carrying them to first place).
New-ish to Forza Horizon 5 is the Horizon Tour. Described to be a casual co-op mode for up to six players, Horizon Tour involves a couple of races where you team up to race against AI Drivatars, with intervals where you drive with other players to the next race point start. However, the playlist for a Horizon Tour runs on a schedule that will change every 5 minutes.
There’s a specific spot to wait for the next Horizon Tour to pop up, so it’s possible to have car meets with random players and friends before starting the playlist.
We call Horizon Tour new-ish, because these sort of playlists, where you raced in teams with interval drives, have appeared before. But now it’s a casual experience rather than having it be a core multiplayer mode.
Also, now it’s been made more clear what Horizon Link is. Instead of a chat wheel that you can assign specific, pre-defined, chat messages like in the previous game, this time the chat works contextually. Some of the chat messages, highlighted in yellow, will let you interact with another player directly, like putting players into the same convoy (party) or into the same matchmaking pool for activities like Horizon Tour.
Previously discussed and revealed features like Horizon Arcade (a new version of Forzathon Live where you do mini-games while roaming the open world) and gift drops were also shown during the broadcast.
In other news, the livery editor for Forza Horizon 5 get shown on a separate broadcast at the Forza Monthly stream, which also divulge some details on what the next new Forza Motorsport game, simply titled Forza Motorsport, are being tested out.
Forza Horizon 5 will be out on November 9 for the PC (Steam, Microsoft Store), Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.