Pre-order Forza Horizon 4

Microsoft has been in a slump in recent years in regards to first-party exclusive titles, so it's mainly focuses on its Forza racing franchise, with alternating releases of the Forza simulation titles and the more arcadey, open-world Horizon brand. Forza Horizon 4 is back this year and will tackle an unlikely, yet fitting, environment in Great Britain. While it seems like an anticlimactic setting after the sunny vistas of Southern France and Australia that have been featured in previous offerings, this year's installment introduces more vast open spaces, muddy tracks, more verticality and harsh weather conditions. We sat down with the developers at Gamescom 2018 for a demo ahead of the title's release in October.

The selling point of Forza Horizon 4 is its interconnected world and changing seasons. If you believe Microsoft, it's not presenting just one open-world game but four at once. The team captured different skyboxes for different seasons to get the look and feel just right. Seasons impact races, road conditions, and visuals, and they'll cycle automatically. Players won't be pushed from summer through winter in one race; the game cycles its seasons in order every week for everyone. For demonstration purposes, we were shown a video of changing seasons within the same race, showcasing how the same race track could feature wild rivers one week, leaf-cluttered streets the next, and frozen bodies of waters the week after, and all conditions impact the driving experience significantly. The seasonal impact is not just felt; it may even cause you to select a specific vehicle for certain seasonal events.

Speaking of seasonal events, Forza Horizon 4 will feature new events every week, and they'll only be available during specific seasons. The post-release content won't end there, though. The team at Playground Games is committed to adding new Forza rewards and two new cars every week for the first 26 weeks after release. In combination with the new seasonal tracks, that marks an effort to create a steady stream of new content that players will play for months and years to come. Given the previous cycle of a new Horizon game every two years, this begged the question of whether this Horizon may break the cycle and enter the state of a "game as a service" title. The response was, "Maybe, if you like to call it that, sure."

The next big thing is that Horizon's open world is completely connected. You'll be able to play in an open world with 71 online strangers, segmented into smaller chunks of 12 (6v6)  to make everything manageable. Developer Playground Games calls this "seamless co-op," which means that you'll have a number of human players at your side instead of the series' usual Drivatars, so it becomes a more social experience. The online experience uses the Xbox Clubs feature, which is fully integrated into the Forza experience, so your clubs and teams can be created and managed inside and outside of the game, with activity feeds and every Xbox Clubs feature. Your teams of six (or you on your own) can compete in either quick or ranked online play, similar to other games, including tiers and season rewards based on your performance.

While some of this was part of previous releases and demonstrations, there are new things to share from our presentation. Instead of an Xbox One X, we were shown the PC version of the title to showcase Playground's progress in developing for PC. This is only the developer's second PC game after Horizon 3, but the team seems to have learned a fair bit from its previous release.

Instead of aiming at 30fps, this version will be optimized to achieve 60fps to create a more stable-performing release. This iteration will also offer more custom options than before, and players can even push past ultra settings on their PCs. Add HDR functionality, the possibility of crossplay, and the Play Anywhere program, and the PC version is shaping up to be quite an appealing package.

While most of our demo showed Forza's cover car, the McLaren Senna, pushing through an area based on Britain's New Forest, there was a surprising showcase event that rounded off our brief joyride through Horizon 4.

There may or may not have been a rumor about a collaboration between Playground Games and Halo developer 343 Industries. The answer is a showcase event where we took control of the iconic Halo Warthog as Master Chief to complete a mission-based race while under attack from several Banshees and other Halo-themed vehicles. Special decorations littered the race course to remind us of the classic shooter series. It was a nice crossover event that fans of the Xbox brand will surely appreciate.

Forza Horizon 4 seems poised to deliver everything we expect from the series and a bit more. The changing seasons, online play and dedication to post-release content are good indicators that this October, we may have another great racing game for the Xbox One and PC at hand.