Barely a month after revealing that Forza Horizon 5 would be the first racing game to make the jump from being Xbox exclusive onto the PlayStation, Microsoft has announced the official launch date: Tuesday April 29.
It’s actually a slightly unusual date as, Forza fans will attest, Thursdays are the days in which various events and challenges refresh. However it seems that Playground Games has something in store not just for newcomers on the Sony platforms but for existing players too. More on this in a minute…
Forza Horizon 5: PlayStation 5 Versions
There’ll be three different flavors of FH5 made available for PS5 players, each with an increasing amount of bonuses and add-ons: Standard, Deluxe, and Premium.
As you may expect, the “Standard” version of the game — priced at $59.99 — is FH5 all on its own. That does mean well over 800 cars, all of the more-than-40 updates to date, and the original Mexico map with a twist we’ll cover further down.
The $79.99 “Deluxe” edition adds the Car Pass, which brings a further 42 vehicles to the game only available through this add-on. Originally these were delivered to Xbox players at the rate of one-a-week through the first year of the game’s life, but we suspect they’ll be delivered en masse.
Finally, the $99.99 Premium edition brings the two expansion packs — Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure — along with some more cars in the Welcome Pack, and some extra perks that include a credit-earning boost from VIP membership. There’s also four days’ early access, so you can get into FH5 on PS5 starting Friday April 25.
This does somewhat suggest that the expansion packs and various car and perk packs might be available separately somewhere down the line though there’s nothing concrete on this at the moment.
Additionally, players can pre-order Forza Horizon 5 on PlayStation 5 to grab themselves 5,000 Forzathon Points (for rare cars and cosmetics), five free Horizon Backstage Passes (to purchase previous playlist exclusive cars when they pop up), and the Mercedes-AMG ONE cover car.
As with the Xbox consoles, PlayStation 5 players will have the option of a 60fps Performance mode or a higher resolution (we assume 4K) quality mode. It’s slightly different for Pro players, where the Performance mode maintains image quality and the Quality mode adds ray-tracing effects.
Forza Horizon 5: Horizon Realms
The PS5 launch — or at least the early access part of it — coincides with what looks like a big change to the way FH5 works, with “Horizon Realms” coming April 25.
It’s not immediately clear if this will entirely replace the existing “Playlist” functionality, as there’s a bit of a clash between what it offers and the current format of revisiting old playlists based on player vote — so hopefully this will be clarified soon.
Again, it does start on an odd day for Forza, possibly allowing for Series 45 to expire for the fresh start.
Either way, Horizon Realms will allow players to freely dig into old “Evolving Worlds”: cosmetic changes to the world map which bring new decor, changes to key locations, and some wide-ranging environmental differences.
There’ll be a dozen different realms to play with, comprising 11 from previous playlists and a brand-new Stadium Track located in the broadly central football stadium location.
The other themes include the stadium changes for the Ice Rink, Lunar Drift Arena , Oval Track, Stadium Maze, Stunt Park, and Winter Wonderland, as well as Cars and Coffee, Dia de Muertos (mainly in Mulege), Neon Airstrip, Retrowave Highway, and Summer Party.
Along with these realms, there’s a new set of Accolades based around them that covers more than 60 challenges as well as making older ones connected to those specific Evolving Worlds events available again if you have previously missed them.
Earning the Accolades will award you special badges, Forzathon Points, and four new reward cars: the Hennessey Mammoth 6×6, Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, Lamborghini Revuelto, and Lotus Exige Cup 430. We’ll have to wait to find out what Accolades you’ll need to complete to score these cars.
There’s a further four vehicles coming in a special Nissan Retro Rides car pack — which will be included in the Ultimate Car Pack even if you’ve already purchased it. All four are compact classics, comprising the Nissan Be-1, Nissan Figaro, Nissan Pao, and Nissan S-Cargo.
As yet we’ve not heard anything about car packs being made available to the incoming PlayStation 5 cohort, but we expect to see pricing for the various options soon.
See more articles on Forza Horizon 5 Game Updates, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 5 Pro.
