It’s time to dust off your driving gloves for Xbox owners as open world racing comes to the 360 and Xbox ONE shortly with the release of Forza Horizon 2. It’s a direct sequel to the high octane action of its 2012 predecessor and with a stunning setting of southern Europe, combined with some of the world’s coolest car, it’s a game that demands attention as soon as you hear the roar of the engine.
Watch the trailer below to get a feel for the action yourself, but it’s looking like the game has got a whole lot crammed under the bonnet with a sprawling driving experience like no other. While racing is still going to be a key feature of the game, there’s much more emphasis on the beauty of the drive itself, giving you the opportunity to race head-to-head with your friends online in the latest super cars, while also providing some of the most splendid classic cars to pootle around Europe in.
Release date
Forza Horizon 2 will be tearing its way into the shops on the 30th September 2014 in the US, with a slightly later UK release date of the 3rd October 2014. The good news for 360 owners that haven’t made the plunge to the next gen power of the Xbox ONE as of yet, is that unlike Forza 5, FH2 will be released on both consoles, so the old guard don’t have to miss out entirely on the driving action.
Cars
You’ll be able to race in more than 200 cars and you can see the full list of cars that have been announced by clicking on the show/hide all cars link below. In terms of super cars, the big name additions include the 2015 Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4, 2012 Pagani Huayra, 2011 Bugatti Veyron Super Sport and the 2013 McLaren P1. You’ll also be able to drive everything from the 1945 US military Jeep Willys MB to the 1963 Volkswagen Type 2 De Luxe and everything in between, taking in the 1973 Renault Alpine A110 1600S, 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2 and 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427 along the way.
Tracks
The term tracks is a little less relevant for Forza Horizon 2 as you have a massive open world road racing environment to gas around in. While the game talks about southern Europe, the road trips focus largely on the south and France and northern Italy, giving you some of the most stunning roads in the world to drive around in. This means that you’ll have freedom to explore a range of different events throughout the likes of Provence, Tuscany and Côte d’Azur.
Gameplay
As with the first release in what’s becoming the Forza Horizon racing game series, the second installment is all about the drive on the open road. While Forza Motorsport 5 was largely a lap based race track experience of epic proportions, FH2 sees you taking in the sights of a massive network of drives throughout the south of Europe in a massive open world setting that’s around 3 times larger than its 2012 predecessor.
While the racing style itself will be close to that of the incredibly detailed Forza 5, the overarching game will be quite different, with long courses in what’s being described as a living environment. This means that every turn of the road will be a new one, so you’ll need to drive more on your wits, instead of learning the track from the first lap and getting progressively better. Throw in the change of weather and time of day as your driving and you’ve got much more environmental factors to take into account, including the traction of the surface of the road during rain or the lack of light as you transition from day to night mid way through a race.
You can also interact a little with the environment as you smash through fences and gates to find new shortcuts to get to finish line. This will see you driving on everything from back country dirt tracks to fields and forests in your bid to become the greatest driver at the Forza Festival, which will see you explore the massive regions covered, entering races and special events as you go in order to progress through the huge game.
The switch between solo and online play has been crafted to remove the concept of lobbies and waiting times, allowing you to instantly control how you play. You can also join or start your own Car Club, which can accommodate up to 1000 members. It gives you access to the potential of a broad or tight knit community of players with leader boards and new, bespoke competitions to take part in.
The Xbox ONE version of the game also re-introduces Drivatars to the mix following their Forza 5 debut. This will fill your offline solo gaming experience with the driving skills of your friends’ experience-based driving avatars, so you’re never really just racing against CPU generated AI, instead you’ll be racing against the augmented racing style and skills of the people that are in your extended Car Club and friends network.
Graphics
Graphically the game is quite literally stunning, however, there will obviously be a sizable difference between the look and feel of the Xbox 360 version and the next gen jaw dropping visuals on the Xbox ONE. For Xbox 360 graphics, you should probably think along the lines of a slight improvement on the rendering in the original Forza Horizon game, but for the Xbox ONE you should probably be thinking along the lines of the grace and beauty of Forza Motorsport 5 combined with the environmental variation of the 2012 game.
The result of the next gen version is the ongoing evolution of the Forza graphics engine, but both console releases will feature the full day and night cycle along with amazing weather and lighting effects. This will inevitably be all the more detailed and impressive on the Xbox ONE version of the game, so much so that the visuals in the trailer that has been released are all from in-game footage from the ONE.
First impressions
We’re pretty positive about the prospect of Forza Horizon 2, especially in terms of the first next generation experience for the series. It looks amazing, includes the same driving excellence of Forza Motorsport 5 and delivers a very different type of racing fun that’s a lot less restricted in terms of laps and tracks.
