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Dali is very excited about paint: Forza Motorsport will feature 500 cars (but probably won’t launch this Spring)

Dalibor Dimovski

And context-aware dirt!

Forza Motorsport was announced back in 2020, and then featured last year in Xbox’s blowout non-E3 presentation. During the platform-holder’s Developer UNDERSCORE Direct this week, the company revealed even more information about the upcoming game (minus one big data point — it’s release date).

Firstly, the video above gives us a look at a ton of new features coming to the series. The game is a sort of reboot/restart to the series, dropping the numbers and going back to “Forza Motorsport” as its name. The game will feature over 500 vehicles initially, including over 100 cars new to the series, and 800 upgrades, alongside 20 tracks. When Forza first kicked off, and through its Xbox 360 years, the series was often cherry-picked for its smaller roster of vehicles. Although there were hundreds of fewer vehicles than in Gran Turismo, for instance, these cars were incredibly detailed, down to accurate materials, stitches, engine sounds and tire grips. Over time the company was able to keep adding vehicles while not sacrificing the details of the past, and with over 500 now that stable now feels big and deep with realism.

Here’s just a few of the cars that have been announced:

Turn 10 is stating that the advancements to physics in this latest iteration are more than those of Forza 5, 6, and 7 combined, which should help in all manner of vehicle controls. As is usual with the series, players will likely find vehicles they feel most comfortable with because of how they drive, not just about how they look (although that ZL1 1LE is a beast for both).

One of the important but subtle advancements to the series is its materials and paint realism. While Turn 10 is updating things like the paint to have multiple layers, flakes, light reflection, and gloss depth, it’s the context aware stuff that I’m very excited about. Studying design and art my entire life, I fully understand how the psychology of how realism affects our driving habits in games is incredibly important. Accuracy makes us more cognizant of situations, and something like how paint chips or dirt lands on our cars with the new changes to the game engine can subconsciously affect how we take corners, avoid sunlight reflections (and the direction the sun is coming from), and brake on wet roads.

It’s something that’s difficult to explain, but when it’s there it can get us to “feel” the road better.

Anyhoo, all of this makes me so freaking excited. I’ just don’t know when the game is coming — I’m just bummed that the game likely isn’t going to make it out until October. Last year, Xbox & Turn 10 gave us the “Spring 2023” timeframe, but the DEVELOPER UNDERSCORE DIRECT shifted that to a nebulous “2023”. With Redfall arriving in May, and Starfield probably not landing before July at the earliest (June is packed!) there’s not much time to drop more info and marketing for a game that will launch within the next couple of months.

Forza Motorsport is set to arrive this year (I HOPE!) on Xbox Series S/X, Windows, Game Pass, and Game Pass Ultimate Cloud Streaming.

Source: Turn 10

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