Forza Horizon 5: General Discussion

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They will partner with someone like Dacia to make new traffic cars?
I mean, I'm starting to think @nukleabomb has it on the money and the partnership is actually the reveal of whatever cover car they'll have lined up for FH6. But considering the Series title is Hidden Horizons (which, makes sense considering the new game mode is Manhunt) I almost wonder if it's a cheeky way of hiding a sponsored series.

although I've been known to be way the hell too paranoid about this
 
Since it's in the string files and someone will inevitably post it here anyway:
The new game mode is hide and seek. The hiders apparently blend in with regular traffic cars (not sure if they get to drive traffic cars or just show up as one for seekers), a detection meter fills up when a seeker is near them, and there are some power-ups that can either boost your power or drop your detection.

Hiders win if they reach a certain destination, so it sounds like it's an official implementation of the type that I think FailRace usually plays.
Perfect fit for Horizon. Will be very interesting to see how it plays.

I think traffic for this mode will need to become denser, especially since it's quite sparse in a normal online convoy session.

Curious to see how much of the map is used for this mode as well - is it a small sectioned off portion or is it the whole thing?

In terms of non-playable traffic cars - we all know what these are. Certainly would be cool to see them added to the game - they could even be added as rewards for playing the new game mode - much like the 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator was added as a reward for getting Level 25 in FH4's Eliminator mode when it first came out.

FH5: Non-Playable Traffic Cars:
2009 Ford Fiesta Zetec
2006 Ford Transit Diesel
2010 Mazda Mazdaspeed 3
Playground Bus/Truck
2005 Subaru Legacy B4 2.0 GT
2003 Volkswagen Bora VR6

Even getting 1 or 2 of these in the next update would be awesome, we all know how sought after/requested the Mazdaspeed and the Legacy are. Obviously the Bus/Truck won't happen but would be cool to see them playable in this mode as well.

Perhaps PG could also add cars like the Tsuru as a traffic car as well - to mix things up a bit and keep it fresh for a new game mode, especially one based on traffic cars so heavily.
 
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They should go back to what FH1 traffic cars had - they got a GMC Yukon, E100 Corolla and a Camry among many others.

Of course they would have to be unlicensed and fictionalized, but I would personally love to see these return in some form. I'm tired of seeing the same few traffic cars.
 
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They should go back to what FH1 traffic cars had - they got a GMC Yukon, E100 Corolla and a Camry among many others.

Of course they would have to be unlicensed and fictionalized, but I would personally love to see these return in some form. I'm tired of seeing the same few traffic cars.
There are about 56 car brands (or more, but I've lost track of the Chinese brands that just arrived) built and/or marketed in Mexico, one would hope to see something that matches the variety we have in our roads.
 
Yes, it should have the 3.5 V6 that's also in the Lotus Emira/Evora. I'm pretty sure the Camry is a North American car only (unless it's still sold in Australia/NZ?)
That generation of the Toyota Camry is sold in Australia and New Zealand, albeit we never got the TRD variant.
 
First impressions on all the routes they just added--you can actually play these in races now, you don't have to wait until the 15th. I played all of these in S1 class because I'm not crazy enough to make my first runs on these using S2 hypercars.

Rocosa Sprint: A badly needed technical sprint in the base game. The Horizon Circuit makes for a great technical challenge after that first set of tighter sweeping corners, and it's essentially a reverse route of the track as well, meaning you engage with its corners in a new way. The corner that leads out onto the hairpin you need to take to get back onto the roads is very deceptive, I failed a couple Rivals attempts just now because of it. Be careful.


1723495099267.png


Cloverleaf Sprint: Remember Horizon Callejera from Horizon Street Scene? This is basically half that route but in the daylight and with walls set up and a 90 degree corner about two-thirds of the way through to mix things up. This is the shortest route of the bunch, by far--it only took me 95 seconds for my first S1 run. It's clear this one is meant for Modern Rally and A-class and below to really mix it up; the only place my CX-75 really got to stretch its legs was on that final third. It's not a bad route by any means, I just wish it had more to offer S1 and above.

1723495629971.png


San Juan Sprint: It always bothered me how the GPS, when it took routes on the asphalt through San Juan, would make you detour on the dirt road directly northwest of the Stadium instead of carrying you through the rest of the road. This route doesn't do that at all; it's basically a full asphalt run of San Juan's western half up to the starting location of the dreaded Volcan Sprint. Aside from a murderous 90 degree corner about 40 seconds in, most of this route is just straight-up flat-out bliss. I actually kind of want to run it again with a full supercar instead of the VUHL I have in my screenshot, just to see if that holds up--this is, so far at least, my favorite route of the four.

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Valle del Rio Sprint: Where Rocosa Sprint jumpscares you at the very end, and San Juan Sprint tries to kill you at close to the very beginning, Valle del Rio gets after you at the halfway point, after a high-speed section. This route uses the Arbolada Drift Zone to make its hairpins possible--while they aren't super difficult by any means, it's enough to possibly throw off a newer player. This isn't the most technical of the four, but it does require some initial finesse. Aside from Cloverleaf, this is my pick for weakest route of the four, its bark really is worse than its bite if you know what you're doing.

1723497233075.png


Overall... I'd give these routes a solid 7 out of 10. They're not as fun as the ones they added with American Automotive as a whole, although Rocosa Sprint and San Juan Sprint add some much needed technicality and variety, respectively, and Cloverleaf is more tuned for the cars we're getting this Series. I get why they're here but like I said with Cloverleaf, I wish they had more to offer.
 
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When I was in Singapore my cousin's husband (a cabbie) drove a recent model seven seater* Toyota Alphard which had a Camry engine. I'd love to hoon and race one in the game as I think it'd be hilarious.

*(provided the seventh person is a midget)

The Alphard is a quite popular luxury van in Asia. The Alphard is just the base luxurious version of the van. There is Toyota Vellfire for the mid model and Lexus LM350 for the highest model.
 
Was hoping for a few more than just 4 new routes, mainly so there'd be more event lab starting points.
We've had 8 this year so hopefully a few more are incoming. The only trouble I see with adding a load more race routes would be the map getting clustered with start points.

With any luck they'll eventually give us the option to start an Eventlab anywhere we want.

@UKMikey oh yes more Dirty and X Country would be appreciated if they're going to give us more races.
 
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I'm assuming that PG added road routes instead of circuits because there simply aren't many road loops which take around ~1 minute and are reasonable to use as a track in the map. I guess they don't want to increase the circuit length to 1.5 or 2 minutes, hence we get routes instead.

But I'm sure there are plenty of off road route options left on the map, and cross country can be anywhere. I guess PG has stats on how many people race each type of event and concluded that roads are much more popular?
 
I'm assuming that PG added road routes instead of circuits because there simply aren't many road loops which take around ~1 minute and are reasonable to use as a track in the map. I guess they don't want to increase the circuit length to 1.5 or 2 minutes, hence we get routes instead.

But I'm sure there are plenty of off road route options left on the map, and cross country can be anywhere. I guess PG has stats on how many people race each type of event and concluded that roads are much more popular?
If that were true, Team Asphalt would have won the Race-Off handily. I'm thinking it's probably something to do with curbing griefing; since Street Races and Cross-Country races have no guardrails in the slightest it's very possible to use the environment to ram someone off the track, whereas the dirt trails and asphalt sprints have walls around pretty much every possible corner, it feels like.

That being said, I'm surprised we haven't gotten any new dirt sprints in the base game at all. You'd think a filler update like this would lean towards having off-road things, especially since three of the four reward cars are either meant for the off-road or have rally pedigree. I mean, sure we already have quite a few rally Focuses and Fiestas, but can't we be nudged into making our own for this update?
 
Yep, it's basically the Dodge equivalent of the Grand Cherokee SRT and GC SRT Trackhawk that are in the game under Jeep. One is the 'ordinary' N/A model, one is the frankly daft 700hp supercharged model.
Karen and Ken need all those horses when trying to beat you to that parking spot at Wal-Mart.
 
DK
Karen and Ken need all those horses when trying to beat you to that parking spot at Wal-Mart.
"Dear, we have a family now, you have to buy an SUV now, you can't have a muscle car anymore".

"Ok Dear, I will buy a simple Dodge Durango".


See? Use case is obvious.... :D
 
I Think the new mode will be interesting after looking at the strings for the new game mode.

So here's the details of the mode based on the dialogue strings in the files, spoilers warning :


The name of the mode will probably be "Horizon Hide and Seek"

The codename for the mode is "Weston"
  • The mode will be introduced by Ramiro
  • There will be team for Seekers and Hiders (there is a possibility that the hider is a single person/player, still unclear)
  • Seekers needs to find Hiders before they reach the finish line
  • Hiders wins if they reach finish line
  • Seekers will use high power cars, the dialogue itself said "Seekers in high powered speed machines" and "have the power to chase down a hider once you find them" one (same) car for the whole team of Seekers
  • Hiders will probably use traffic cars?? the dialogue itself said "look for traffic cars driving strangely" and "But don't be too obvious! you're just traffic, remember?
  • Swapping cars for hiders?? (unclear as of now)
  • There will be a detection bar for hiders, the bar drains if the seekers are near the hiders, if the bar reach zero the seekers will win
  • There will be pickups for seekers and hiders
  • Ability to mark your location/pickups for other team members to see
  • Seekers will have a hot and cold meter when nearing a hider (unclear if this is a pickup or a permanent feature)
  • Hiders pickups (Recovery pickup for reducing detection bar)
  • Seekers pickups (Hider compass, will give you rough direction when near a hider)
  • Horn activated pickups? (again unclear if its a pickup or one time usage per session thing)
  • When seekers hit horn, hiders horn will responds
  • When hiders hit horn, nearby seekers will be slowed down
  • When hiders hit horn, seekers will be marked on the map
  • Seekers get a picture?? of the last cars driven by hiders
  • Seekers get a close range fast travel to regroup
  • More games you finish means higher wins streak and more XP
  • If you quit during a game, you wont be able to enter the game mode for awhile (finally some sort of consequence for quitting early)
This is just my speculation, but the mark your location feature seems to be carried from what is left of eliminator duos.

Well, This notes is longer than i initially expected.
 
Jonathan "StripeyMiata" McCormack mentioned on Twitter that his 2023 Ford Focus ST was sourced for Forza Horizon 5.


It's rare that someone actually takes credit for their car being used in a Forza game, so this is very cool indeed! I wish we knew when this was, though we do at least know from the Ginettas that T10 has a pretty good turnaround for car modeling, since those were captured not long before the game came out.
 
I saw some people on Reddit disappointed that we got the post-facelift Focus not the pre-facelift Focus (which arguably looks better). Now they know who to complain to

:banghead:
 
All this talk of race routes has me pining for some off road long course racing. I'm going to have to go looking for some later. Ever since I started playing FH with FH2 I've preferred longer races, preferably sprints.
 
It's rare that someone actually takes credit for their car being used in a Forza game, so this is very cool indeed! I wish we knew when this was, though we do at least know from the Ginettas that T10 has a pretty good turnaround for car modeling, since those were captured not long before the game came out.

The Ginettas were seemingly planned as far back as 2019, hence the model year on all four of them. The new Fiesta and Focus however seem to be the two most recently-started cars that have been released, newer than the Dark Horse, KITT, even the Evo 3 in FM8. Playground have been pretty consistently producing brand new content lately, the only older planned car that I can think of that has recently come out is the FH3-era Pajero, er, Montero.
 
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Wow The Trial this time was dysfunctional.

First race: pile up a couple of corners in, my MR2 is nimble enough to get around it and I work my way up as far as 2nd place, only to get passed by the best driver toward the end and finish third. Despite the points being roughly even during the race, we lose by 500 points or so, due in no small part to the two players bringing up the rear who DNFd.

Second race: I'm doing well, working my way up through the pack, when, toward the end, at least two other players, maybe three, miss their checkpoints. One player DNFs. We lose. Miserably. First attempt at The Trial: Failure.

....ok, I can always try again.

Race 1: Half the other player cars launch slower than my rear wheel drive MR2 and some of them start wiggling around across the track in front of me. headdesk One guy misses the first sharp corner and goes sliding off into the night, I brake late on one of the other sharp corners and end up losing four places getting back on the road, another guy gets caught up with ramming an AI car and misses his checkpoint, at about 85% I get rammed hard off the road by an AI car and lose most of the progress made since my earlier slipup, another player DNFs and...we lose.

Race 2: One guy quits about 30 seconds in, two players are bringing up the rear, the guy in the 2000GT is all over the place, one guy misses not only his checkpoint but the entire bridge (he is last seen running up the slope at the other end of the bridge at 100 mph and launching into the stratosphere), the lead AI is about a mile ahead at the halfway point (curse you Teagan...!), the guy who DNFd the first race quits and I finish in 3rd place. We lose. Again. Second attempt at The Trial: Failure.

You know what? I kinda wanted the VW Thing, and I definitely wanted that 40 pt car, but do I want them this bad? No...no I don't. I have never raced The Trial where the players lost after just two races, and here I've done it twice.
 
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Wow The Trial this time was dysfunctional.

First race: pile up a couple of corners in, my MR2 is nimble enough to get around it and I work my way up as far as 2nd place, only to get passed by the best driver toward the end and finish third. Despite the points being roughly even during the race, we lose by 500 points or so, due in no small part to the two players bringing up the rear who DNFd.

Second race: I'm doing well, working my way up through the pack, when, toward the end, at least two other players, maybe three, miss their checkpoints. One player DNFs. We lose. Miserably. First attempt at The Trial: Failure.

....ok, I can always try again.

Race 1: Half the other player cars launch slower than my rear wheel drive MR2 and some of them start wiggling around across the track in front of me. headdesk One guy misses the first sharp corner and goes sliding off into the night, I brake late on one of the other sharp corners and end up losing four places getting back on the road, another guy gets caught up with ramming an AI car and misses his checkpoint, at about 85% I get rammed hard off the road by an AI car and lose most of the progress made since my earlier slipup, another player DNFs and...we lose.

Race 2: One guy quits about 30 seconds in, two players are bringing up the rear, the guy in the 2000GT is all over the place, one guy misses not only his checkpoint but the entire bridge (he is last seen running up the slope at the other end of the bridge at 100 mph and launching into the stratosphere), the lead AI is about a mile ahead at the halfway point (curse you Teagan...!), the guy who DNFd the first race quits and I finish in 3rd place. We lose. Again. Second attempt at The Trial: Failure.

You know what? I kinda wanted the VW Thing, and I definitely wanted that 40 pt car, but do I want them this bad? No...no I don't. I have never raced The Trial where the players lost after just two races, and here I've done it twice.
You really are in the laps of the Gods when it comes to The Trial and who you are paired up with. I was lucky this week and got it first time. It was however only a few weeks ago it was until my 4th go at trying I succeeded.

I have found (and this isn't scientific, just my experiences) that the early in the week you play The Trial i.e. Thursday or Friday if possible the better your team mates seem to be.

If you can muster the will power Stray Cat I do recommend having a another go bud at The Trial. The VW Thing is worth having.
 
I Think the new mode will be interesting after looking at the strings for the new game mode.

So here's the details of the mode based on the dialogue strings in the files, spoilers warning :


The name of the mode will probably be "Horizon Hide and Seek"

The codename for the mode is "Weston"
  • The mode will be introduced by Ramiro
  • There will be team for Seekers and Hiders (there is a possibility that the hider is a single person/player, still unclear)
  • Seekers needs to find Hiders before they reach the finish line
  • Hiders wins if they reach finish line
  • Seekers will use high power cars, the dialogue itself said "Seekers in high powered speed machines" and "have the power to chase down a hider once you find them" one (same) car for the whole team of Seekers
  • Hiders will probably use traffic cars?? the dialogue itself said "look for traffic cars driving strangely" and "But don't be too obvious! you're just traffic, remember?
  • Swapping cars for hiders?? (unclear as of now)
  • There will be a detection bar for hiders, the bar drains if the seekers are near the hiders, if the bar reach zero the seekers will win
  • There will be pickups for seekers and hiders
  • Ability to mark your location/pickups for other team members to see
  • Seekers will have a hot and cold meter when nearing a hider (unclear if this is a pickup or a permanent feature)
  • Hiders pickups (Recovery pickup for reducing detection bar)
  • Seekers pickups (Hider compass, will give you rough direction when near a hider)
  • Horn activated pickups? (again unclear if its a pickup or one time usage per session thing)
  • When seekers hit horn, hiders horn will responds
  • When hiders hit horn, nearby seekers will be slowed down
  • When hiders hit horn, seekers will be marked on the map
  • Seekers get a picture?? of the last cars driven by hiders
  • Seekers get a close range fast travel to regroup
  • More games you finish means higher wins streak and more XP
  • If you quit during a game, you wont be able to enter the game mode for awhile (finally some sort of consequence for quitting early)
This is just my speculation, but the mark your location feature seems to be carried from what is left of eliminator duos.

Well, This notes is longer than i initially expected.
Could you spot any sort of progression system alongside this mode, like the Eliminator got when it was introduced in FH4?

Swapping cars for hiders would be awesome - such a fun part of Failraces GTA vids is that he regularly swaps vehicles to keep it difficult for the seekers.

Still also seems unclear if you actually get to drive traffic cars as a hider, or you'll just appear as one on the seekers screen.

I hope you do actually get to drive the traffic cars - but I guess the vehicles would require extra balancing. No-one would want to be the Beetle versus say the Legacy B4, if they're in stock form.
 
Perfect fit for Horizon. Will be very interesting to see how it plays.

I think traffic for this mode will need to become denser, especially since it's quite sparse in a normal online convoy session.

Curious to see how much of the map is used for this mode as well - is it a small sectioned off portion or is it the whole thing?

In terms of non-playable traffic cars - we all know what these are. Certainly would be cool to see them added to the game - they could even be added as rewards for playing the new game mode - much like the 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator was added as a reward for getting Level 25 in FH4's Eliminator mode when it first came out.

FH5: Non-Playable Traffic Cars:
2009 Ford Fiesta Zetec
2006 Ford Transit Diesel
2010 Mazda Mazdaspeed 3
Playground Bus/Truck
2005 Subaru Legacy B4 2.0 GT
2003 Volkswagen Bora VR6

Give me the parade float or give me death
 
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