One of the hardest of challenges in Forza Horizon 5 is The Trial. This is a weekly Festival Playlist event where you race co-op with other playest against AI at their highest difficulty- Unbeatable.
The Trial events offer some great rewards, but require some hard work and most of the time, a lot of luck if you’re playing with just random players.
Here is a guide, and some tips, that can help you increase your chances of beating The Trial, hopefully, by maximising the options under your control.
Understanding Co-Op Team Racing Works
The Trial is a 6v6 co-op event, which means it follows a points system seen in team-based races in Forza Horizon 5.
For each opponent you beat, you get 100 points. The winner will get an additional 50 points for their team. In the case of a full 12-car race where one team has split the other (say, all of the blue team finished from 4th to 9th), it won’t end in a tie.
The Trial is a best-of-three rounds affair, win two races and you’ll beat The Trial.
The unbeatable AI is disgustingly fast, so a player finishing 1st is a very rare occasion. But you can still win as a team.
The minimum the team needs to do is have the fastest player finish 3rd, the second-best player finish at least 5th, and the rest of the team follow directly behind, 6th-9th.
In the case of a not full lobby, the same rule applies. As long as the trailing players finish behind teammates from the 5th position, you’ll have enough points to win.
Of course, having the top two players finishing further up also helps cover players that are left in 10th or lower. Though it’s best that you try your best to finish not last. It’s very doable to finish 7th-9th with preparation and practice.
Players quitting mid-match when they are at dead last won’t affect negatively- it may make your attempt to win easier due to how the points system works.
General Tips On The Trial
Get A Tuned Setup
You’ll need every advantage you can get in beating The Trial. Get your preferred car to the maximum performance of its class. Even if you don’t know how to tune a car. Go check the “find custom setup” and you should find tunes by the community specifically for The Trial. Unless your choice of car is an obscure one.
Race Together
Remember, you are working together with the other players to win. So avoid unnecessary contact, and if it happens, avoid retaliation. If you know you’re slower, just give space for the others to pass you– in hopes that they’ll do their part to gain more places up in front. Especially during the starts, where race-ruining collisions are likely to happen.
Pay attention to where you start position in relative to your teammates, so you don’t accidentally block faster players that can carry the team to victory. If you’re up ahead, drive as wide as possible to block opponents, backing them up so the rest of the team can catch up and overtake them.
Drive Consistently
The Trial is a test of mettle. Don’t try too hard to make through a corner flat out or take really sharp turns only to miss a checkpoint or hit a tree, which is very costly.
It’s better to keep yourself at a pace you’re comfortable with. Remember, as long as you’re not last and beat at least three other AI cars you’re doing your part.
Practice Makes Perfect
You need to be familiar with the courses to have a good shot at beating The Trial. Should you fail, don’t fret, you can make better preparations after the first go.
Make note of the course where The Trial this season takes place and then go race on them on your own (with the correct same car you’ll be bringing for The Trial) until you feel confident doing another run.
Tips On Multiclass The Trial
Starting With “A Fine Addition” in Series 1, Forza Horizon 5 introduces no limits on car classes. So you can have a field of mixed car classes racing.
Without knowing how to approach this, this Trial can be quite a mess, and fans are understandably not too keen on having an already hard challenge getting harder, especially when playing in random matchmaking.
Hopefully, these tips can put you at ease on beating multiclass The Trial events.
An important note: The AI Drivatars will match your team’s composition of car class. If your team has 2 in A class, 1 in S1 and three in X, then the AI will follow suit.
In the case of multi-class The Trial races, tuning your car for the top X class is NOT a good idea, unless you are really good at handling overly fast cars and can carry the team with your prowess. The AI in X class is much more difficult to beat, so having less X class cars, the better your chances are to win with random players.
At the moment, there’s an abundance of players that do run The Trial in the faster class cars. In this case, a good strategy is to have at least three team members using a slower class.
In order to get the minimum enough points to win a race, the backmarkers need to beat at least three cars to 7th, 8th and 9th. If three players in, for example, an A class car can beat their respective A class opponents, then the rest of the team in the faster S1, S2 or X classes only needs to pass one AI for 3rd place, with the other two maintaining position ahead (5th and 6th) of the A class group.
If you can get two friends to coordinate the backmarker squad, you’ll likely have an easier time with The Trial. Hopefully.