Series 4 of Forza Horizon 5 continues with its second full season, with Autumn bringing along its stormy weather.
As you’ll no doubt already be aware, the theme for S4 is the Horizon World Cup. It’s an event that thrusts players into a a variety of carefully selected cars to take on Festival Playlist events from six nations: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the USA.
Every time you complete an event you’ll score points towards the nation in question. Drive a Japanese car and Japan earns points, drive an American car and the USA scores points, and so on. The points accumulate across Series 4, and whichever country gets the most will generate a mystery prize gift for all players — likely a car from that nation in a special World Cup livery.
With that in mind, the Playlist is a little shorter each week for the month, focusing on the Seasonal Championships. There’s fewer online race events too, helping out players who don’t have Xbox Live Gold (or a PC), and no PR Stunts at all — though these will return from Series 5 so players can continue their Accolade progress for these events.
This Series also has slightly fewer points on offer, and the target scores for Season and Series rewards are also lower. In addition, all the Playlist-exclusive cars are now the lower 25-point rewards, and many of the events now gift cars that you can use in the next season’s playlist.
Series 4
With a week of Series 4 already under our belts, the main Series prizes should be coming into range for particularly busy players. Although S4 has fewer points on offer generally, the lowered prize boundaries mean that you should be able to score one of them this week.
That’ll be the Saleen S7, available for 100 points across the Series. This 200mph supercar, featuring a seven-liter Ford V8 stuffed into a spaceframe chassis and carbon-fiber body designed by Phil Frank was one of the fastest cars in the world when it came out, and the USA’s first full production supercar.
You won’t be able to collect the other Series prize this week, as a maximum points total of 116 before the end of the Autumn season will leave you some way short of the 160 points required.
However, you can look forward to picking up the Koenigsegg Jesko in next week’s Winter season. Somehow even faster than the Saleen, with an on-paper top speed of 300mph, the 1,300hp V8 Jesko is actually named for the company founder Christian von Koenigsegg’s father.
Series 4 will run through to 1430 UTC on Thursday, March 3, with Autumn lasting until the same time on Thursday, February 17.
Autumn
There’s another chance to get a Chinese car in this season’s playlist, although it’s rather at the opposite end of the performance spectrum to the NIO EP9 from last week.
Wuling’s Hongguang MPV — named in FH5 as the Sunshine, though that’s a different model with a sliding rear door in the Chinese domestic market — is one of the most popular cars in the world. Racking up nearly five million sales since it was first launched in 2010, you’ll find the Hongguang near the top of the sales charts in China every month, especially in the most recent EV form.
The car in FH5 is a regular, petrol-powered example, with a 1.5-liter engine good for some 84hp. However, as we saw in the Let’s Go livestream late last month, there are a few mods available in the game to make it go faster. Much, much faster.
It’s available for 25 points this season, and is exclusive to the Playlist so you won’t be able to get it anywhere else — at least until much later in the game’s life.
For 45 points across the Season you’ll be able to get the Rimac Concept 2 — or C_Two, also now known as the Nevera in the real world.
This all-electric supercar follows on from the Concept_One, developing the original car’s quad-motor 1,241hp drivetrain into more than 1,900hp, evenly distributed with a motor in each wheel. It’s also planned for full production, unlike its predecessor.
The Rimac isn’t a Playlist exclusive, but it is ordinarily pretty expensive at 2,000,000cr, so a free one isn’t to be sniffed at.
Again there’s 54 points on offer this week, so you’ll need to finish almost all of the Playlist to get both cars. Of course for 10 points for The Trial, you’ll still need Xbox Live Gold (or play on PC) to score the Rimac, but the reduced online multiplayer selection means the exclusive Wuling is more easily achieved.
Forzathon Events
There’s more Horizon World Cup action in this week’s Forzathon Weekly Challenge, which is worth five points towards your total and 80FP. Firstly you’ll need to pick up any car from the USA or Germany made before 2010 to get the Country Rivals event started — and we’d recommend anything with some ground clearance and AWD/4WD.
After that, take your car and win any Cross Country Circuit Event. Only circuit events count, not point-to-point, so you’ll need to find a green map marker with the circuit icon on it, and win the race.
For the third stage you’ll need to score a three star time on any one Trailblazer. Typically the time limits for these are quite tight, so you might need to get the tuning stick out and tweak the car so it moves up a few classes.
The final stage requires you to earn five Crash Landing skills in your car. This combination skill is made up of two other skills, with a Wreckage skill for hitting a breakable object following an Air skill for getting all four wheels off the ground. Simply jump about and land on stuff — the Baja Circuit would be a great venue for this — to claim the points.
This week’s Daily Challenges, as usual worth one point each towards your season total and 10FP, have a couple of online multiplayer events which will require Xbox Live Gold or to play on PC.
That starts with the first event, Catch!, which will see you playing Playground Games. Both the regular Horizon Open event and the Seasonal event should count, but either way you’ll need to infect another player with the zombie curse during a round of Infected/Survival.
More multiplayer follows on Friday, with Teamwork requiring you to complete two Horizon Tour events. Simply visit the Tour location near the main Festival to get this started and run through two events.
Speed Run is Saturday’s challenge, and you’ll need to score ten Speed Skills in the Deberti F-150 Prerunner. This should simply require you to hit 100mph ten times in the big, 800hp truck, so you’ll probably want to hit the main highway to get this checked off.
On Sunday your challenge is to win any Cross Country event in a C Class vehicle (501-600 PI) for C You Later. You could in theory combine that with the second stage of the Weekly Challenge, for maximum efficiency.
Next week starts with Rise to the Challenge, requiring you to complete any Challenge Card. You could of course do this as part of your Super7 antics.
The Very Best follows on Monday, and you’ll need to race against and beat any S2 Class car in a Rivals event. Head to any race start point, select Rivals, and S2 Class, then beat the ghost to win.
Finally you’ll need to score three stars on any one Danger Sign in any Infiniti. There is of course only one Infiniti in the game, the Q60 Concept, so get that, tune it up, and smash the distance target to complete To Infinity.
Season Events
Horizon World Cup is still the focus of the action this week, so there’s no PR Stunts. It’s just three Seasonal Championships — worth five season points each — running specific car lists of eligible B Class (701-800 PI) vehicles from the USA, UK, Japan, Italy, Germany and France.
Each of the three events is worth five points towards your season total and gifts you with prize cars that will help you out in the corresponding events in the Winter season.
Home Street Home will see you racing your choice of BMW M3 ’05, Ford Focus RS ’09, Jaguar XE-S, Lamborghini Miura, Nissan Skyline GT-R R32, or Renault Megane R26.R in a Street Scene series. Win the three-race series to pick up the 2018 Honda Civic Type R.
You’ll be running off road in the Dirt Racing series Super Sonic. Pick up any one of the six eligible cars — Audi Sport Quattro, Ford Escort RS1800, Maserati Levante, MINI JCW GP, Renault Megane R26.R, or Subaru Impreza WRX ’04 — and win the three-race championship to score the Peugeot 207 S2000.
Lastly the Cross Country event, The Big Leagues, will feature the Ford Ranger Rally Raid, Range Rover Velar, Maserati Levante, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, Porsche Macan Turbo, and (again) Renault Megane R26.R. Come out top after the three races and you’ll win a Lamborghini Urus.
Just to guide your choice of vehicles this week, Japan is currently winning the World Cup, with 25% of all players so far using Japanese vehicles.
Horizon Arcade returns for this week too, though it’s unclear if it counts towards World Cup participation. You’ll just need to reach and complete the third round of any Horizon Arcade event to pick up the three points on offer.
Horizon Arcade: Mini Games
- Car: Any
- Location: Any
- Challenge: Complete three rounds of Horizon Arcade
- Reward: 3 points
Seasonal Championship: Home Street Home
- Car: B Class, “Country Rivals: Street Racing”
- Location: Descansar Dorado, Costa Rocosa
- Challenge: Win the Championship
- Reward: 5 points, Honda Civic 2018
Seasonal Championship: Super Sonic
- Car: B Class, “Country Rivals: Dirt Racing”
- Location: Atlantes de Tula, Cascada Trail
- Challenge: Win the Championship
- Reward: 5 points, Peugeot 207 S2000
Seasonal Championship: The Big Leagues
- Car: B Class, “Country Rivals: Cross Country”
- Location: La Gran Caldera, Las Dunas
- Challenge: Win the Championship
- Reward: 5 points, Lamborghini Urus
Finally there’s the two online multiplayer events. Again, you’ll need to either play on PC or have an active Xbox Gold subscription to take part in these.
You’ll head down to Ek’Balam for the Playground Games this week, This co-op, team-vs-team event pairs you with up to five other players for a face-off with a squad of other players in a best-of-five set of Zombies, King, and Flag Rush games.
This week’s car selection is identical to Super Sonic, using the B Class dirt racing vehicles from the six nations involved in the World Cup. Completing the event — winning isn’t necessary — will get you the five points and a BMW M2.
The Trial occupies its usual position as the most difficult event on the list, but thankfully the relatively easy to drive B Class cars should help matters this week.
It’s a three-race road racing event against “Unbeatable” AI Drivatars which will see you trying to work as a team with up to five human players to defeat a group of bots. Best results come from players blocking the AI in order to let their team-mates get past and score points towards your totals.
As with the other events, it’s a World Cup grouping of cars, but this time in the road racing class. There’s a Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 ’95, Ferrari 365 GTB, Honda NSX-R ’92, Jaguar XE S, Porsche 911 (930), and… yep, a Megane again, although it’s a 2018 Megane RS.
Win as a team over the three races and you’ll take ten season points and a Caterham R500 for use in next week’s events.
Seasonal Playground Games: Contact Sport
- Car: B Class, “Country Rivals: Dirt Racing”
- Location: Ek’Balam
- Challenge: Complete the championship
- Reward: 5 points, BMW M2
The Trial: Full Speed Ahead
- Car: B Class, “Country Rivals: Road Racing”
- Location: La Selva, Sierra Verde Sprint
- Challenge: Win the Championship
- Reward: 10 points, Caterham R500
Challenges
There’s a few more challenges this week than last, with a Collectibles event and a Horizon Open challenge in addition to the Photo Challenge.
You’ll need to head to the Horizon Mexico Circuit to get your photo credits this week. Take the Ferrari 812 Superfast to the course — right beside the main Festival site — and photograph is for the two points and an Applause horn. If you don’t have the car, wait around a while in Horizon Life mode for someone else to turn up in it!
The Collectibles event requires some petty vandalism. Grab any car and smash up ten bicycles with it. If you want to get it over and done with, the best place is the square in Guanajuato where you’ll find the start point for the Urban Cross Country Circuit (also ideal for the Forzathon Weekly Challenge), as there’s about 20 bicycles littering the area, all in nice bunches. Three points and a 2015 Challenger will be your prize, you menace.
Horizon Open’s “Good Sport” event this week will send you to Horizon Open Racing. Hit the pause menu, go to Online and Horizon Open and select Open Racing.
All you’ll need to do is earn five Clean Start skills, which means you’ll need to race five times and make it to at least the first checkpoint without smacking into anything hard. As player cars are usually ghosted for at least the first few checkpoints, it just means you need to avoid any solid scenery.
Finally, and if you haven’t already done it, there’s Monthly Rivals. This challenge runs across all four weeks of the Series, but you only need to set a clean lap time once in the Series in the provided car/track combination to complete it.
For S4 it’s the new NIO EP9, running at the Estadio Circuit around the outside of the stadium. The 1,341hp car can approach some of these sharp corners very quickly indeed, so be sure not to clatter a barrier and ruin your clean run.
Completing the event grants four points to each Season in the Series, for 16 points in total — and these backdate to earlier Seasons if you choose to do it later on.
Collectibles: Two-Wheel Challenger
- Cars: Any
- Location: Any
- Challenge: Smash 10 bicycles
- Reward: 2 points, Dodge Challenger 2015
Horizon Open: Good Sport
- Cars: Any
- Location: Horizon Open
- Challenge: Earn five Clean Start skills in Horizon Open Racing
- Reward: 2 points, World’s Fastest Forza LINK
Photo Challenge: #CountrySports
- Cars: Ferrari 812 Superfast
- Location: Horizon Mexico Circuit
- Challenge: Photograph the Ferrari 812 Superfast at the Horizon Mexico Circuit.
- Reward: 3 points, Applause Horn
Monthly Rivals: Plaza Circuit
- Cars: NIO EP9
- Location: Estadio Circuit, Estadio Horizon
- Challenge: Post a Clean Lap
- Reward: 16 points (4 added to each season)
Forzathon Shop
Finally there’s a new Forzathon Shop for the week, with a some rare and unusual goodies.
Leading the way is Porsche’s 959. This highly advanced supercar essentially married together all of Porsche’s technological know-how at the time to create one of the first 200mph capable production road cars. Though officially the original car was just below this mark, a little extra power in the S version pushed it up to a heady 211mph
Ordinarily the 959 comes in at 2,000,000 credits, and is of course available through the nearly random chance of the Wheelspin, but at 600FP it’s not a bad price.
The other offering is the RJ Anderson Pro 2 truck. This mad pickup — which is really a spaceframe chassis with a pickup body — is specifically designed to go as fast as possible over the wildest terrain out there, so it’s perfect for Mexico. However at 500,000cr in the Autoshow, 400FP might be a bit steep.
You can also pick up the “Goalll” car horn and some rather busy Spaik Crew Socks for clothing your avatar for 75FP each, and there’s the usual Wheelspin (80FP) and Super Wheelspin (300FP) too.
See more articles on Forza Horizon 5 Season Change.
