There is a wisp of a story but no true endgame except bragging rights and accumulation.
The beating heart of Forza 5 is a hyper-capitalistic car-based economy that demands both your attention and money. Some activities are barely concealed commercials for real cars, like a Jeep-sponsored off-roading competition in which you can only use the new model of Jeep’s absurdly large SUV, the Gladiator, to traverse Forza’s version of Jurassic Park.Īrguably, everything here is a commercial in one way or another.
The map of Mexico quickly becomes dotted with flashing icons beckoning you to compete in various on- and off-road races, to locate vintage autos hidden away in barns, or compete with friends or strangers in mini-games, like collectively hitting thirty thousand miles an hour on a highway speed trap. From the moment the game opens with a Ford Bronco brazenly parachuting out of the back of an airplane so that you can traverse an active volcano, it’s hard not to fall in love with driving fast cars in seductively beautiful vistas with endless things to do. Microsoft is trumping it as the biggest launch of any game in the game console’s two-decade history. It’s been wildly popular so far, with 10 million players since it was released earlier this month. In the meantime, the tech titan celebrated Xbox’s twentieth birthday by granting subscribers of its Game Pass - essentially Netflix for video games - instant access to Forza Horizon 5. Yet like the artist formerly known as Facebook, Microsoft is quietly hard at work building out its own corner of the metaverse, with gaming promised to be a key part of it. Users of Web 2.0 are largely unconvinced of the coming of so-called Web 3.0. Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement of Facebook’s Meta brand makeover and accompanying hour-long infomercial for the metaverse invited plenty of incredulity and mockery. It’s built on the foundation of video gaming’s past while also working as a self-contained metaverse that hints at - or warns of - what’s ahead. Forza 5 represents a transitional technology.
I’ve clocked four straight hours but it’s felt like minutes.Īm I trapped in the metaverse? Not quite yet, but the newest in Microsoft’s acclaimed racing series contains the outline of one. Who knows, maybe I’ll finally win that expensive new Aston Martin supercar so I can outpace my online friends. Then I immediately speed into a lounge chair and gain a thousand destruction points, which can be used to earn prizes. I’m laser-focused on the thousands of points the game announces that I’ve just been awarded for skidding my golden Lambo back-and-forth along the beach - it’s a “Supreme Drift,” I’m told. He doesn’t even flinch as the vehicle careens toward him like a bullet at a hundred miles per hour. The beachside cafes and resort hotels are all curiously empty except for a man in a tank top perched on a lifeguard tower. The whine of the car’s high-octane engine drowns out the sound of ocean waves lapping against the shore, and its tires kick white sand everywhere. It’s a tranquil morning on the coast of a superrealistic version of Mexico’s Riviera Maya in Forza Horizon 5 - or it would be if not for my lipstick red Lamborghini blazing an illicit path through the beach.