A large, 14.16GB game update is now available for Forza Horizon 5, bringing fixes for numerous issues across the board which players have noticed in the first month.
It’s the second update for FH5 since launch, with the previous “hotfix” primarily addressing priority problems with the game’s online modes while Playground Games worked on this more significant patch.
Again, it’s online that is at the center of this patch, with Horizon Arcade, Horizon Open, and Convoys all receiving special attention.
For Horizon Arcade, PG has adjusted the completion requirements for some of the events and implemented a system to scale the score target appropriate to the number of players taking part. In addition, the matchmaking system now tries to group players together into larger teams, just so there’s a little more mayhem.
Some of the minor bugs, such as Barn Finds showing up mid-run, have also been addressed, while there’s now new icons for each type of Arcade game, and a longer, 10-minute window to start a match.
In addition to that is a fix to the Convoys system which is aimed at addressing an issue whereby your friends and indeed other players out in the Horizon world to vanish and re-appear at random. That should help build larger groups for matches.
There’s other fixes for Convoys, including a change to allow all players in a Convoy to join the leader when they accept a game invite over Forza LINK.
Horizon Open sees a couple of changes to enhance playability and reduce waiting times. Open racing events now consist of three stages before a car class change, and the lengthy Goliath race is no longer in the rotation to save waiting players from a 20-minute thumb-twiddle. S2 Class Cross Country races are also no longer in the mix.
Any Street Races in Horizon Open will now take place at night, as any self-respecting underground race scene should, and the no-traffic issue for these races has also been fixed. Players will note that the finish line is different from all the other intermediate checkpoints too.
One for players who love The Eliminator is a randomizer for the Car Drop spawning positions. That should help you avoid falling victim to the players who know where all the level eight cars spawn…
There’s myriad changes to Accolades too, to correct several issues across the game’s primary ranking system. This includes fixes for a number of the story-based Accolades where objective completion wasn’t registering, and several other Accolades which would either not complete correctly or complete incorrectly.
A bug affecting multi-stage Accolades, where they would reset to show as incomplete, has been addressed, and several Accolades have been removed as their objectives were impossible with the current vehicle list.
One particularly interesting change to Accolades is the addition of a new section, named “Evolving World”. This area contains 13 new Accolades, which look to be specific to the upcoming holiday season and should therefore tally with Series 2.
The list of Accolades within this section include challenges to own or perform tasks with cars that are not yet in the game, strongly suggesting they will appear over the next four weeks. These cars are as follows:
- Ferrari 575M Maranello 2002
- Ferrari 599 GTO 2010
- Lamborghini Aventador J 2012
- Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Spyder Performante 2012
- Maserati 8CTF 1939
- Peel P50 1962
- Peel Trident 1965
- Toyota Hilux Arctic Trucks AT38 2014*
- Toyota Land Cruiser Arctic Trucks AT37 2016
These and others have also appeared in the Car Collection area, as yet unavailable to purchase, suggesting that they will become available in Series 2. The additional vehicles are:
- Donkervoort D8 GTO 2013
- Ford Mustang Mach 1 1971
- Jaguar XKR-S GT 2015
- Toyota Celica SS-II 2003
- Toyota Hilux Arctic Trucks AT38 2007*
- Vauxhall Lotus Carlton 1990
- Zenvo ST1 2016
Festival Playlist regulars will no doubt be familiar with a glitch that would give a challenge failure message requiring an additional 1ft/1m/1mph despite meeting the target. That has also been fixed, along with the maximum points achievable in each season being corrected.
Glitches in EventLab, Super7, and some Expeditions have also been addressed, along with errors in certain cars — and additional convertible functionality in free roam for the Porsche 918 Spider and Willys Jeep. There’s also a number of tweaks specific to PC players
It’s a very large list of changes, and you’ll be able to find full patch notes in the comments thread for this article, but doesn’t address all known issues just yet.
However, Playground Games notes it’s continuing to work on fixes for these, and players should keep an eye out for further updates. In the meantime, all players will also receive 1,000 Forzathon Points by way of apology for the issues.
Featured image courtesy of taz, additional images from Rumenapp.
