Earlier this month, in the midst of the release of the Rockstar Car Pack for Forza Horizon 3, Turn 10 accidentally gave its PC users a whole lot more; an entire debug version of the title, exclusively saved for development purposes for the in-house team.
The initial spotlight was on the slew of new—yet to be used—content being discovered, from likely future downloadable content, to racier inclusions assumed to be for Horizon’s track-focused sibling, Forza Motorsport 7. Community member TheAdmiester has dug even deeper within the game to discover a whole range of features long lusted for by the community.
Such features include resolution bumps for the Big Shot image feature (last seen in Forza Motorsport 4), allowing users to render pictures all the way upwards to sixteen times their playing resolution, meaning for far more crisper and detailed photos. There’s also customizable blur samples (offering a more life-like depth of field).
Probably the largest of the forbidden fruits is the ability to use Forza Vista to explore the car anywhere in Australia, instead of only from one of the game’s festival hubs. You can see an example of this below, with an un-released car for good measure:
Not all of the discovered features stick to being photography-related either. The debug version gives full control over the powerplant, drivetrain and even sound samples used for cars, giving the opportunity for absolutely no limitations—all the way to de-spoilering those pesky cars that weren’t given the opportunity for it originally.
We can’t help but be reminded of the “hybrid” movement that swept through Gran Turismo 5 late in its lifecycle. When the save files were able to be manipulated, users crafted all manner of Frankenstein-like vehicle combinations. A similar series of events unfolded with GT6, though many players received PSN bans after tampering with the files.
It is yet to be seen whether the hype surrounding these features will give Playground Games or Turn 10 the incentive to include them in their future games straight from release. After all, with Gran Turismo Sport’s “Scapes” feature pushing the boundaries for digital camera-wielders, Forza could use an upgrade of its own.
Encouragingly, Playground Games has a history of adding in official support for fan-discovered features in FH3: the ability to upsize stock rims (which we covered in greater detail last October) was included in a recent title update. We hope somebody’s listening…
You can check out the rest of TheAdmiester’s gallery right here.
Forza Horizon 3 is currently available on the Xbox One and Windows 10 platforms.
See more articles on Forza Horizon 3 DLC, Forza Horizon 3 Game Updates, and Xbox One.
