What this has allowed Playground to do is add a handful of additional curated drives to Horizon 5, which it’s dubbed Expeditions. These points, or “Accolades,” are awarded for achieving major and minor feats, and essentially function as a dramatically expanded version of the Brick Challenges in Forza Horizon 4’s LEGO expansion. It looks brilliant.Ī rethink in how the career mode unfolds has seen Playground add a new points system that allows you to take charge of what event hubs and special races you want to prioritise unlocking. It’s tough to pick my favourite visual element of Horizon 5, but think it might just be the drastically better smoke and dust effects – and especially how light interacts with the particles in the air. I’ve been playing mostly on quality mode since the frame rate never, ever wavers in either mode – remaining rock solid at all times and in all conditions – but know that the visual concessions in performance mode are generally so small I need to study freeze frames to spot the difference anyhow. On Xbox Series X that’s true of both the 4K/30FPS quality mode and the 4K/60FPS performance mode. but you still can’t place decals on glass, which remains a shame.īetween the cars and the map, however, Forza Horizon 5 is barnstormingly gorgeous on both fronts. Changes to the livery editor also see it support higher resolution designs and graphics.

Granted, there isn’t a huge number of cars that are strictly new to the franchise – and those of us who stuck around Forza Horizon 4 each week for the last few years collecting every new car will have seen the lion’s share of them before – but Playground has assuaged that slightly with the addition of a lot of new rim options and visual upgrades that may help breathe new life into cars you’ve seen a lot of previously. The garage is just as grand as the map itself, with well over 500 vehicles, and it’s a selection that still handily eclipses all Forza Horizon’s open-world racing rivals.

What is horizon for xbox