It's strange how much things have changed in a decade. During the GT4/FM2 years, games were widely advertised with their full car counts on display, but most people understood a solid chunk of them would be locked away behind some sort of progression tactic.
Now, you find some folks up in arms about not having access to (customize) every car in game. It isn't misleading; you can still drive them all as rentals. Which was more than, say, GT4 offered in terms of the Model T. That car was only available as a gold reward for the top license. There was absolutely no other way to get it.
In my opinion, there's only two real issues with the current setup:
- Rental cars can only be run while homologated. If you want to try the car stock, you can't.
- The problem with locking some cars behind unique online progression events is that some folks will never gain access, or that access will be impossible once FM8 is launched.
Both are design decisions. One has an easy solution: a simple option to drive the car stock. The second is tougher. When I talked to Dan, he mentioned the gradual roll-out of online events and features as a way to keep the audience engaged for longer. I get it — dumping everything on people's laps on release could be overwhelming — but I wonder how many people it alienates. As ever, you can't please everyone.
As we move more and more into online-focused games, I hope there's a way to still satisfy traditionalists. Even if there's more of a grind involved with earning (insert rare, currently locked car) then there is when it pops up in a Forzathon event you can complete in 15 minutes, offline players should, ideally, be able to access all of the content on their disc/file.