Despite the win for Best Sports/Racing Game at The Game Awards 2023, Forza Motorsport (2023) is currently not in a good shape. In a new blog post, developers Turn 10 promise that work is being done in three key aspects to improve the state of the sim racing game.
Car progression, the most contentious new feature for Forza Motorsport, will continue to see changes. The idea of having to put in literal hours on track behind a specific car to unlock all the upgrade parts come from a sound intention (get players to bond and get to know the car before they can tinker with it) but doesn’t take account of how the existing playerbase plays the game. Previously, the part unlocks have been changed so they unlock earlier. But the team are still “exploring changes to the system”, with the goal of keeping the bits where the current playerbase is happy with, while addressing the issues dedicated players are having with the progression. Fixing car progression is “a top priority for the team going into 2024”.
The penalty system, or the Forza Race Regulations as the developers refer it to, will be tweaked. Players have reported inconsistent or unfair penalties. The team will be working with experienced competitive Forza Motorsport players to gather telemetry and tweak the penalty system.
Lastly, the AI Drivatar will also be improved. Some of the feedback gathered are AI abruptly braking and slowing down, exiting corners slowly and hard brakes on mild corners. There are also issues of AI being too aggressive and messy starts as cars collide at turn 1 of a race, these two are getting top priority for fixes.
Turn 10 will provide these community updates, seperate from the usual monthly content drop updates, on a quarterly basis.
Forza Motorsport (2023) is currently sitting at Mostly Negative reviews on Steam. Early reviews for the game at launch were mostly positive, even our own review comes out positive though it certainly didn’t make the cut for our Best 30 Games of 2023 list.
Stability issues with racing online, replays being borked and more have really left a sour note on the community. In fact, two of the biggest competitive Forza league racing communities, Racing Heaven and TORA (as pointed out by content creator HokiHoshi), are suspending their racing season until Forza Motorsport has fixed issues that is halting these communities from experiencing good online racing.
Hopefully Turn 10 can turn around the state of Forza Motorsport, since the game is intended to be a platform for long-term support. This is the only Forza Motorsport game any new player can purchase (the previous seven games have all been delisted due to licensing issues).