The countdown is officially underway until the next entry in the open-world series releases later this month. Before racers can blitz around the land down under enjoying features new to the franchise, there’s an interesting detour along the way: the original Forza Horizon is now available to everyone with an active XBL Gold subscription courtesy of this month’s Games With Gold.
Released in 2012 on the Xbox 360, Forza Horizon was a radical departure from the track-focused Motorsport series, moving onto the open road of Colorado. While the approach resulted in a smaller car list totaling just over 130 cars at launch, the number swelled to over 200 when all was said and done courtesy of DLC, introducing a number of unique vehicles along the way including the Eagle Speedster.
With a frame rate cut in half, the game had little trouble impressing and marked quite a few innovations for the franchise. The first in line to feature dynamic time of day, a feature becoming a staple of the series, also featured was a curated music playlist under the guise of radio stations, even introducing rally racing to the series courtesy of a dedicated expansion pack.
For those that missed out on the game and its additional content when originally released, the Season Pass and Rally Expansion Pack are both on sale at $4.99 each. The Season Pass brought with it 6 additional car packs, totaling 36 new cars released between November 2012 and April 2013.
An additional 5 bonus cars delivered monthly rounded out the Season Pass and were included at no additional cost, and they were as follows:
2006 Lamborghini Miura Concept
2003 Ford Focus SVT
2009 Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster
2010 Devon GTX
2010 Joss JT1
The Rally Expansion introduced 5 new rally-focused cars to the game, rally stages and a co-driver at your side calling out the severity of turns and bumps along the way. New Rivals events, online rally modes, and 10 new achievements also made the cut.
Forza Horizon is now available to download for free for all XBL Gold members from September 1st until the 15th, on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One. As always, remember to stop by our dedicated Forza Horizon forum for more in-depth analysis and discussion.
See more articles on Forza Horizon and Games With Gold.
Played it last night. One of the best racing experiences I’ve ever had with the wheel.
I had it on 360 (controller) and expected the physics to be arcady, so i put steering on sim, manual/clutch, assist off. I was blown away. You know how you start with the Audi, well it was a pain to drive at speed. Took ten tries to win the first race. You could really feel like you was trying to get it to do something it wasn’t meant to. Changing tires makes a big difference.
I can only imagine how 3 is going to be.
The game is great with a wheel. Feels very similar to FM4.
The 360 version of FH2 feels much much worse. The cars have way too much grip, its a more arcade-like experience. Never tried it on xbox one so I cant say if the next gen version of FH2 has the same problem.
Played all week. This game is amazing. Gotta try the rallies next.
All the cars have different turning ratios, weight, suspension travel, even ambient vibrations.
Driving a celica with race suspension was impossible to do on dirt. The old tuned mini loved to understeer or lift a front tire during throttle. the Nissan r35 had a weird ambient vibration to the car that no other car seem to have. And i remember a article saying the car makes random sounds in real life.
The ferraris, lambos and the sorts all have great handling. But any car will understeer if you turn the wheel in to much during a turn. It’s actually easier to play with a controller because you drift instead of understeering.
The only difference ive found between this and gt6 is gt has the clutch travel for each car, and if you don’t shift right the car stalls.
The multiplayer is still active if anyone is wondering. Must have game for racers
Picked it up even though I played the hell out of it on the 360. Its free so why not, plus I loved this game and would now rather have it playable on my XB1. Alice still annoying as always!
Awesome game,unfortunately it is now suffering from crazy frame drops lasting up to a full minute sometimes before going back to it’s standard fps.
because xbox one installing dlc content
That’s awesome for people who don’t have it yet. It’s a great racing game for the most part. First game I got for my Xbox 360 actually. Also it’s good looking for a last gen game unlike Forza 4 thanks to it using 4x MSAA, and FXAA. That’s better AA than most current gen games, although with a 720p resolution, you need it, badly.
I can’t download it either. It only says “See Price” and it takes me back to the home page.
I found my answer, never mind.
When i want to download it on my xbox 1 it says it need a billing adress or something , why doni need since the is suposed to be free?
The billing address is mandatory. It’s so they can send you the bills for things like Xbox Live and paid games. Horizon IS free, it just needs the billing address so you can get the receipt.