Forza Motorsport, the highly anticipated racing simulation game, is finally out after 6 years of development. Read on to learn more about our first impressions and whether or not this game is worth your time and money.

Forza Motorsport Review Overview

Forza Motorsport Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Outstanding Racing Gameplay Optimized Realism Makes it Great for Beginners and Veterans Alike Excellent Multiplayer Available on Xbox Game Pass	RPG Style Car Level Progression May Not Appeal To Everyone Multiplayer Issues Visual Performance Limited in Xbox Series S First Person View Hinders Spatial Awareness Bug Infestation

Forza Motorsport Overall - 86/100

Forza Motorsport is the best feeling racing simulation game right now. The excellence in its gameplay, visuals, and audio, provides players with an incredible driving experience. Customization in this game is vast and while it obviously will undoubtedly satisfy a car connoisseur, the game also assists players who aren't too keen on car customization. The result is an excellent racing game for both casuals who just want to drive fast and car experts who enjoy fine tuning their car and editing race elements.

Forza Motorsport Story - 7/10

Forza Motorsport is the best feeling racing simulation game right now. The excellence in its gameplay, visuals, and audio, provides players with an incredible driving experience. Customization in this game is vast and while it obviously will undoubtedly satisfy a car connoisseur, the game also assists players who aren't too keen on car customization. The result is an excellent racing game for both casuals who just want to drive fast and car experts who enjoy fine tuning their car and editing race elements.

Forza Motorsport Gameplay - 9/10

Forza Motorsport’s gameplay feels great. The emphasis Forza put on game physics and handling significantly elevates the game’s immersion. The game’s realism and complexity is leagues above the driving experience in games like GTA V, where you could be flooring the throttle the whole time and do just fine. Although the driving leans a lot more to the driving simulation genre rather than arcade style racing games, where Nitro boosts are abound, Forza Motorsport is accessible even to casual players of the racing genre. The game will offer assistance with the more complex things beginners may not exactly understand, like fine tuning and fuel strategies.

Forza Motorsport Visuals - 9/10

From the PC gameplay footage released online, Forza Motorsport looks mesmerizing. However, on the Xbox Series S we used for this review, the graphics were still nice, just not as great as I was expecting it to be. The visuals aren’t bad by any means, but it’s pretty underwhelming when compared to the PC trailers used to advertise the game. The rain effects in-game were noticeably subpar, but everything else was definitely above average. The attention to visual detail Forza has is commendable, with each vehicle featuring a unique interior, true (or close) to their real life counterparts. While Forza Horizon boasts aesthetically pleasing scenic landscapes, Forza Motorsport’s beauty lies in its simplicity and unwavering focus on the racing side of things. Expect a beautiful and immersive AAA quality visual experience if you intend to play on a powerful PC setup, but if you’re planning to get this game on Xbox Series S, you may need to tone down your expectations by just a little bit.

Forza Motorsport Audio - 9/10

The game truly sounds amazing. With a decent headset on, everything sounds great and works to fully immerse you into your car as you speed through the racetracks. Forza Motorsport got everything right, from the sound of your engine as you accelerate to the whooshing sound you hear as you overtake your rivals. What hinders this rating from being a perfect 10 is because of its alleged inaccuracy, with certain clips circulating online of cars not sounding like they should in real life. It’s a minor gripe, but clearly one that means a lot to the gearheads this game is appealing to. Personally, I don’t have the professional racing expertise to say that the sounds in the game are exactly as they are in real life, but I can say that it sounds really, really good. The sound of my Porsche 911 Carrera S as it went full speed was immaculate.

Forza Motorsport Value for Money - 9/10

Forza Motorsport costs $70, which is becoming the new typical price for a big AAA game. While Forza is indeed an excellent game, $70 isn’t cheap by any means. But in my opinion, even as someone who doesn’t play racing games too often, the $70 is worth the investment provided that you are even just remotely fond of cars or racing. However, what pushes this rating up to a 9 is its availability as an Xbox Game Pass title. If you have Game Pass, grab Forza Motorsport when it releases October 10th!

Forza Motorsport Review: Simple, Speedy, Superb

The whole point of playing Forza Motorsport is to participate in races and that’s exactly what the game excels at. With zero focus on the extra factors that might come with a Need For Speed-type racing game, like story, dialogue, and side quests, the team behind Forza Motorsport was able to channel all of their energy into creating a simple yet incredible driving experience. Everything integral to a racing simulator was executed with total mastery in this game. Its game modes, although flawed like most things, are pretty good in its current state, but can potentially be great. For the first time in ages, I was absolutely hooked on a racing game.

The game caters to all types of drivers, from beginners to experts. Although the realistic handling of cars in the game may be difficult to deal with for newbies, they won’t struggle for too long since you’ll quickly get the hang of it. You’ll definitely at least be competitive enough to face the easiest difficulty of bots. There are also certain settings and features that are there to aid beginner to intermediate players.

With over 500 cars you could drive with, Forza Motorsport offers its players a vast (and fast) array of obtainable vehicles. Moreover, the game is still currently in Early Access, meaning the collection is bound to grow. The game aims to make each vehicle exactly (or at least pretty close to) like its real life counterpart, giving its players a totally unique driving feel for each car. This is especially apparent when you use the driver’s POV from inside the vehicle, as each vehicle has a unique and detailed interior. While everything looks and sounds excellent to me, hardcore car enthusiasts may notice some things that my amateur ears wouldn’t be able to. I did, however, notice that customizing your car’s exhaust doesn’t change the way it sounds. Call it a nitpick, but it does somewhat take away from the experience. It’s also worth noting that a lot of the older car models are exactly as they were in previous Forza games, with no visual or graphic upgrades.

Probably the biggest issue some might have with Forza Motorsport is in its RPG style car progression system, which locks customization parts behind a grind. Using your car in any of the game modes gives you EXP, which when accumulated, levels you up and unlocks certain parts of the vehicle. Personally, as a fan of RPGs, it makes sense to me and I think it feels nice to see your car level up and improve as you grow more confident in it. However, for gearheads who are super into customization and just want everything available to them from the start, this may be something they would absolutely hate. You’ll have plenty of money to buy the cars you want, but CP, or the currency you use to upgrade your vehicles, definitely takes a while to accumulate.

Pros of Forza Motorsport

Things Forza Motorsport Got Right
Outstanding Racing Gameplay Optimized Realism Makes it Great for Beginners and Veterans Alike Excellent Multiplayer Available on Xbox Game Pass

Outstanding Racing Gameplay

Forza Motorsport delivers an exceptional driving experience through its top-notch physics, handling, and overall gameplay. The overall feel of driving in this game is just outright outstanding. With each of the 500+ available cars having a unique interior, performance, sound, design, etc, the game already has loads of unique driving experiences waiting to be felt. The visuals, although obviously not as good on Xbox Series S compared to when it’s run on a powerful PC, does just enough in getting you fully immersed in the game. The sound and controller vibrations are on point and perfectly reflect the feel when braking, accelerating, turning corners, or driving off the road. All these touches provide players with an incredibly captivating experience, second only to actually driving 120 MPH in an actual race track. The emphasis on realism, which elevates the immersion factor, also plays a role in this powerful gameplay. And that brings me to my next point.

Optimized Realism Makes it Great for Beginners and Veterans Alike

The game is balancing right on that ultra-realistic part of the spectrum that doesn’t make it so that casual players are discouraged by its complexity. The controls feel natural, the physics feel real, the sound is amazing, and the visual details are pretty good. This isn’t to say that it’s simple; the gameplay may be difficult to grasp at first because it IS still complex. But, you’re bound to excel eventually as the game sets you up to succeed, regardless of your skill level. Beginners can race in Automatic Transmission cars with the Driving Line feature on to serve as a visual guide for accelerating, gliding, and braking. Meanwhile, veterans looking for a challenge can amp up the difficulty, turn off the assistance features, and start races closer to the end of the starting line.

The game also provides customizable strategic aspects, such as fine-tuning and fuel strategies, which should appeal to the biggest race enthusiasts. However, Forza is aware that this may be too complex for the regular gamer, and so it provides beginners with the help they need in the form of automatic tuning and being informative of how your current tire and fuel strategies affect your car’s performance.

Excellent Multiplayer

Multiplayer is where Forza Motorsport shines, as you essentially get to experience the same outstanding gameplay, but you’re able to race against real people and not the predictable CPU controlled Drivatars. Matchmaking is determined by a player’s Safety Rating and Skill Rating, which pits the good against the good, the mediocre against the mediocre, and the ones who drive like madmen against well… other madmen. Races are scheduled and spaced out by 20-30 minute intervals per event, rather than number of players filling up. The multiplayer events are mainly classified into two types: spec events, which limits you to a set of pre-tuned cars, and open events, which allows you to enter with your own custom tuned car. If you do not own any cars for a specific multiplayer event, the game allows you to rent some for free, although you won’t get any EXP for it. Lag was also non-existent, showing that the game has pretty great servers. Granted, this review was written before the actual sale date, so perhap it will get congested in the future.

Overall, Forza Motorsport’s multiplayer has a solid foundation with its structured matchmaking and smooth, no lag experience. However, it’s definitely not perfect as we’ll discuss later on in the cons section of this review.

Available on Xbox Game Pass

The inclusion of Forza Motorsport in the Xbox Game Pass library gives its subscribers a must-have entry. Players can enjoy the game without additional cost, adding significant value for those already subscribed to the service. On the other hand, players who are interested in the game but don't have a Game Pass can get the pass instead of paying for the full $70, giving access to not just Forza Motorsport, but the many other titles available in the Game Pass.

Cons of Forza Motorsport

Things That Forza Motorsport Can Improve
RPG Style Car Level Progression May Not Appeal To Everyone Multiplayer Issues Visual Performance Limited in Xbox Series S First Person View Hinders Spatial Awareness Bug Infestation

RPG Style Car Level Progression May Not Appeal To Everyone

The RPG-style car level progression system is a hit or miss, depending on who you ask. On one hand, beginners may feel rewarded as they improve and level up their cars the more they drive it. On the other hand, car connoisseurs who would love to get into the nitty gritty of car customization right away would be displeased to know that they have to grind for the specific parts they want. Leveling up doesn’t take as long as the ultra-grindy games we’ve come to know, but they’re definitely still grindy.

Moreover, as I have mentioned before, it’s pretty tough to save up the CP you need to get your ultimate build ready, as the game incentivizes you to consistently upgrade your car between each race in a series. Most players would only need to buy a car they want once. However, gearheads have been known to own more than one car of the same model, each tuned for a different purpose. This isn’t something that you can easily do in Forza Motorsport as each car will start at level 1, even if it’s a model you already own at max level of 50. For reference, it took me 7 races with practice laps just to get to level 35, which is around 4 hours.

Career Mode Can Be Pretty Repetitive

After spending tens of hours in the Career Mode, I couldn’t help but eventually grow tired of it. Sure, the driving felt great and I was getting better, driving faster cars, but the Career Mode felt a bit dry. After a couple of hours, you’ll notice that you’ve already raced in all of the maps. It can be nice to return to a track you’ve already raced in, this time with a much more powerful car and much better lap times. But it does get repetitive.

The Drivatars, or the AI Drivers you race against, are pretty good, especially when they have lots of space and not many cars around them. However, when they’re all clustered together, they’re noticeably bad. It can be challenging to chase them and get past them, but once you do, they seem to give up pretty easily and play it safe from there. They will only get past you if you mess up really bad, which you can easily erase with the rewind feature should you have that turned on, or if you go on a pit stop.

Additionally, they don’t try too hard to avoid contact and will often bump into you or other Drivatars, especially in those congested scenarios. Because of these AI tendencies, you’ll notice a trend in single player races, where around 5 cars are always far ahead of everyone else, and the rest are grouped up together, struggling to get past each other.

An issue that I was particularly annoyed with was how the game forces you to do a couple of practice laps before each race. They present it like it’s a key, unskippable part of the game. After spending hours on only practice laps, I found out that there’s actually an option to skip it. Only it’s not in the practice menu or the start menu, but rather under the exit tab in the start menu, which is extremely easy to miss. Despite these issues, I would still willingly spend multiple hours a week to progress in the Career Mode. I said it was repetitive, but I didn’t say it wasn’t fun.

Multiplayer Issues

Although multiplayer is already looking very solid, it’s definitely not perfect. An issue I noticed is that other people can affect your Safety Rating. You could be driving as safe as humanly possible, but still have your score lowered down by drivers who consistently hit you, rather than the other way around. This can potentially be problematic, as people may try to ruin other people’s multiplayer experience just by constantly trying to ram you or run you out of the track.

The scheduled races can also be a con, since if you had just missed the event, you’d have to wait another 20-30 minutes for the next one in the same category. The upside is that once you’ve finished one, you could join the next one right before it starts. But you might end up having to plan around the schedule rather than just casually hop on to do a race.

Visual Performance Limited in Xbox Series S

While Forza Motorsport offers stunning visuals, the performance on Xbox Series S might not meet the expectations set by the strong PC gameplay footage. As I’ve stated before, it’s not bad by any means on the console, it’s just a level of disappointment knowing that PC players are enjoying the same great game in a far better visual setting. In my personal opinion, Forza Motorsport fails to provide a truly, visually next-gen game on the Xbox Series S. But given the lower price point of the hardware, maybe that’s just a bitter pill you’ll have to swallow.

First Person View Hinders Spatial Awareness

The first-person view limits the ability to see around your vehicle, especially the right side, as you won’t be able to see your right side mirror. This limitation impacts player performance, possibly losing control as an opponent hits you from your blind spot. It can be very frustrating, especially in competitive races where you’re trying to finish in a certain time, or place in the podium. While the first person view of the driver in the cockpit is the most realistic and visually appealing POV option, it’s not the most practical for competitive gaming.

Though, admittedly, I can’t speak for those with an ultrawide or multi-monitor set-up.

Bug Infestation

The game hasn’t even been fully released yet so it may be unfair to list this down as a con, but there’s just so many inconvenient bugs that ruin your experience. I averaged around one bug per playthrough and the one I ran into most often was one where you’d finish a race, get stuck in the loading screen, and then be forced to restart the app, leading you to find out that you have to re-do the race because it didn’t save.

This, paired with not knowing that I could have skipped the practice laps, made for an infuriating, unnecessarily repetitive experience. The bugs are so bad, that if you have a look at the official Forza Motorsport Support website, they have a very long list of known bugs. Since the game isn’t even officially out yet, we can only hope that Forza Motorsport will provide us with a bug free racing experience down the road with a day one patch.

Is Forza Motorsport Worth It?

Definitely!

Forza Motorsport’s Career mode, although repetitive, has so much content that you won’t run out of it. In the event that you do, it’s only a matter of time until they release new content for you to dig through again. Despite multiplayer having its flaws, it’s loads of fun. The overall driving feel in this game is simply unmatched, which alone makes it worth it. The amount of detail they put into everything, from the cars, the physics, the sound effects, and experience, results in a superior racing game.

It’s undoubtedly enjoyable, even for beginners, who usually have trouble dealing with a racing sim’s complexity. Although it’s worth the full $70, it makes more sense to own this game as an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, given its cost and how much more you’ll get out of it.

Forza Motorsport Overview & Premise

Forza Motorsport strives to replicate the experience of driving real-world cars as faithfully as possible. Over 500 automobiles and 20 tracks from both real-world and fictional circuits are included in the game. It will also have a new career option called the Builders Cup, in which players will discover new vehicles and tracks featured in the career, based on the tour selected. Currently, Forza Motorsport has four career tours revealed so far: the Modern Tour, Enthusiast Tour, Power Tour, and Legacy Tour.

Forza Motorsport FAQ

What Are Forza Motorsport System Requirements?

Forza Motorsport won’t have any issues running on Xbox Series X|S. But for PC players, Forza Motorsport has the following system requirements according to its Steam Store page:

Game8 Reviews

Forza Motorsport Product Information

Title	Forza Motorsport
Release Date	October 10, 2023
Developer	Turn 10 Studios, Playground Games, Sumo Digital
Publisher	Microsoft
Supported Platforms	PC, Xbox Series X/S
Genre	Racing
Number of Players	Single player, Online Multiplayer (2-24)
ESRB Rating	E
Official Website	Forza Motorsport Website

Abish Tarrobago

Abish Tarrobago: writer by day, gamer by night. Anime, pop culture, cosplay fuel her passion to craft worlds with words.