EDITOR UPDATE: Microsoft released player figures of its own on Wednesday, October 10. According to the PR blast, over two million players have explored Britain since release, covering 822.7 million miles between them. The rest of the article remains unchanged.
It’s been a busy week for Forza Horizon 4. The same goes for its community: over 1.3 million players have taken part in the game in the first seven days its been available.
Player counts are an increasingly common metric in the video game world. While they don’t provide the same sense of commercial success as sales figures, it’s a number that arguably has more of an impact on us, the players themselves. This is especially true in the age of online multiplayer.
The racing genre has had some big figures this year. Gran Turismo Sport hit 5.5 million players mid-July, an impressive figure for a game not even a year old. Meanwhile, with more lead time, Forza Horizon 3 clocked a gargantuan nine million players.
It’s early days, but it looks like FH4 is well on pace to match its predecessor. We’ve taken a look at one of the game’s earliest challenges — one which involves stunt driving a Chiron for a movie production — and the leaderboard shows over 1.3 million players have flung the Bug through a windmill:
That’s a great start for Playground’s latest. As the event isn’t even the first in the game — and players can, in theory, skip it — the actual player count could be higher still. A peek at the leaderboard less than 24 hours earlier had it at 1.17, meaning roughly 150,000 players completed the event since. It’s important to note this total does not include FH4 demo players, either.
Xbox Game Pass has undoubtedly helped this figure too. FH4 has been available from Tuesday on Microsoft’s Netflix-style game service. Those that pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition have been playing since last Friday.
Horizon 4 has garnered its fair share of critical acclaim, sitting at 92 on Metacritic. We rated it quite highly in our GTPlanet review, too. Players have just entered the shared autumn season for the first time, and the game’s first big update, due in three weeks, will encourage even more creativity via the Route Creator.
Enjoying the game so far? Curious about what the community thinks? Pop by our dedicated Forza Horizon 4 forums to discuss all the latest about the title.
Featured image courtesy of JeepXJFreak.
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