Forza Motorsport review: A tuned-up racing revival

Forza Motorsport speeds off into early access tomorrow ahead of its full launch on October 10. Here's what we had to say about Turn 10 Studio's latest.

Sean Carey

Published 04 Oct 2023

After seven entries into the Forza Motorsport series, thousands of cars, and hundreds of tracks, you have to wonder where Microsoft’s tentpole racing franchise can go next. Well, Turn 10 has been busy, tinkering away for the past five years to bring a fresh and enticing new approach to the series that will turn any non-racing fan into an ardent petrolhead.

When it comes to racing games, I’ve always preferred to spend my time throwing a supercar off the side of a volcano, à la Forza Horizon 5. Racing sims are too dry for my simple brain. Qualifying, split times, gear differentials, practice laps, different tire types — I’ve never cared about any of that until Forza Motorsport’s new “CarPG” progression system got its hooks into me.

On the surface, the Builders Cup looks just about the same as any other career mode in a Forza Motorsport game, but it’s not until you get under the hood that you see some significant changes. In previous iterations, progressing in a career mode primarily focused on earning credits to buy and collect new cars. While the car collection aspect is still there (thanks to more than 500 different cars included at launch), Forza Motorsport is more about taking a core group of favorite cars, leveling them up by earning Car XP, and using any credits earned to upgrade them into serious track competitors.

The RPG progression loop is simple. Each car you purchase starts out as stock at level one, and by using it in practice and races, you can earn XP to level it up, which, in turn, unlocks loads of new tuning parts for that car. Car XP can be earned in a variety of different ways, including winning races, safe driving, overtaking competitors, and pushing the car to its limits in each corner. The majority of XP will come from tackling corners. For each corner on a track, you are instantly graded out of ten on how fast you traveled through the bend — the higher the rating, the more XP you’ll get. I love this Car Mastery system and the immediate feedback it provides, as it’s constantly pushing you to improve and be faster on the track.

You’ll likely come across this new Car Mastery system when you first jump into the Builders Cup. Instead of heading straight into a race like in Forza Motorsport 7, now a race event is split into three stages: practice, a new risk-reward system called Challenge the Grid, and the race itself. Being a non-petrolhead, the thought of having to complete two or three practice laps ahead of the actual race felt tiring. I thought a practice session would be pointless, and boy, was I wrong. Practice sessions not only give you the chance to feel out how your car performs and behaves on the track, but they also give you another chance to engage with the Car Mastery system and begin earning Car XP, making them not only essential but extremely rewarding too.

Getting out on Laguna Seca in my first practice session of the Practical Performance series in a trusty 2019 Hyundai Veloster N, it became instantly clear that Turn 10 had gone all out in the visuals department. Forza Motorsport is a phenomenal-looking game. Cars are well-modeled, interiors are peppered with detail, and all 20 tracks available at launch look excellent while playing in Performance Ray Tracing mode on an Xbox Series X. In this mode, performance was near flawless during a race at 60 FPS, and it was hard to tell if the resolution dipped by much, if at all. However, in some cutscenes, and weirdly in some Rivals laps, my frame rate dropped significantly down to 30 FPS. This didn’t happen all the time, though, so I assume it’s a bug that will be fixed soon. As for Performance and Quality modes, it was hard to find fault here. What really impressed me, though, were the weather effects. The game looks gorgeous, with rain lashing down on the windscreen and ray-traced puddles reflecting on the track. Combine this rainy weather with a race at night and 24 sets of headlights, and you’re in for a treat. Simply put, Forza Motorsport is a visual spectacle, and Turn 10 has made superb use of the Series X hardware.

After familiarizing myself with Laguna Seca and the Veloster, the next stage of a race day is the Challenge the Grid system. Here, Forza Motorsport asks you to choose your starting position on the grid and dial in the difficulty and damage settings for the upcoming race — the harder you make things for yourself, the more credits for new cars and upgrade parts you’ll earn. For me, this risk-reward system didn’t quite work; I’d much rather be placed in a starting position depending on my fastest practice lap time. Thankfully, you can manually do this with the exception of putting yourself in first or second position, which works, but surely, if I’m the fastest in practice, I shouldn’t be penalized with a lower spot on the grid. One plus side of this system, though, is that it does make races more replayable and much more challenging if you’re looking for that sort of thing.

Forza Motorsport’s biggest strength is undoubtedly in its racing, which is made so much more rewarding thanks to Car Mastery. During a race, you’re not just competing against the AI (which was competitive and always felt fair at the difficulty I was playing at); you’re also competing against yourself. Each corner on the track becomes an enemy that you have to attack to gain Car XP, and in the moments where you find yourself on your own during a race — when you’re several seconds ahead of the car behind you and several seconds back from the car in front — this RPG-like progression system gives you something to aim for to help you improve your speed and catch the car ahead. This system makes the whole racing experience much more approachable and essentially pushes you to become a faster driver. In a six-lap race on Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit, the Vale-Club corner segment became my Moby Dick. For the first three laps, I couldn’t score higher than a 5.5 rating through those winding bends. Desperate to improve that score, I changed my approach angle and where I was braking on each subsequent lap until the final lap, when I nailed it, scored a ten, and even shaved a couple of seconds off my split time. In a previous game, I wouldn't have cared so much, but now, each time I come across that corner, I know exactly what to expect and how to tackle it.

A lot of work has also gone into car physics, and going back to Forza Motorsport 7 after spending some time with Forza Motorsport, the difference in the way cars feel and handle is night and day. What I really like, though, is how much a car’s physics can change after you install some upgrades. After completing a race, you’re given the chance to upgrade your car with any Car Points you’ve earned from leveling it up. With my Veloster, my first port of call was improving its sluggish acceleration and dire top speed.

Turn 10 says Forza Motorsport boasts over 800 different car parts, of course, only some of these will be applicable to certain cars, and you don’t get access to all parts straight away. Specific parts can only be applied to a car once it hits a certain level, and of course, if the series you’re racing in has a class restriction, you won’t be able to upgrade your car past that class. Initially, I made use of a handy Quick Upgrade feature where the game will automatically pick the best configuration of parts, depending on how many Car Points you have. However, over time, I found myself manually engaging with upgrades for my Veloster, tailoring the car to my specific play style. This is the first time I’ve ever really engaged with a tuning system like this. I’d usually just download someone else's tune and have at it, but as I gradually formed a bond with my car, I began looking forward to upgrading it and seeing where I could squeeze out every extra performance point that was within my budget. Interestingly, the sound of an engine can also change each time you install a new part. The audio is excellent in Forza Motorsport, and hearing the roar of a hefty engine echoing around a track and the pop of an exhaust never gets old.

As I moved through different series, I found myself growing attached to each car that I’d purchased. In the Premium Performance series, I decided to roll with a 2020 Ferrari Roma — instant regret. I struggled to keep its beefy engine under control and found the Roma would slide all over the track. However, after about an hour or so in races, leveling it up, upgrading its handling and brakes, and reducing its weight, it became a completely different car and easily one of my favorites in the game. This slow but steady RPG-like progression of a car getting faster and feeling better over time is extremely satisfying. What isn't so satisfying is the lack of track variation. As you play through the Builder's Cup, the same track locations do keep cropping up, and while there are different circuits on a track, 20 at launch isn't quite enough to keep things from getting a little stale. More tracks are on the way, but having a few more of these DLC tracks at launch would have been nice.

As for online multiplayer, races during the review period were sparse, but I did manage to spend a couple of hours competing in Featured Multiplayer. In this mode, you can pick between Spec Events that use pret-tuned cars to ensure competitiveness between players and Open Series, which allows you to bring your own tuned-up car so long as it fits that class. Some of these events are available long-term, while others will be cycled out to keep multiplayer feeling fresh. Racing here is similar to the single-player career mode, except you can actually post a qualifying lap time for a spot on the grid. Featured Multiplayer events open with a practice and qualifying period, followed by the race itself. To combat rammers and track-cutters online, Forza Race Regulations apply, which means that if you intentionally collide with another player or try to sneakily cut a corner for an advantage, the AI will issue you with a time penalty, and if you do it enough, you could even be disqualified from a race.

Taking things a step further, Turn 10 has also introduced a new safety rating that will factor into matchmaking alongside your skill rating. There are six safety grades (S, A, B, C, D, E), with S being the highest and awarded to the safest drivers, and E being awarded to players that consistently break the rules. While I didn’t really get to see this in practice (everyone was well-behaved when I was playing online), it’s great to see Turn 10 finally try to address unfair online play. If you’re hoping to unlock all the Forza Motorsport achievements, you’ll also have to behave as two achievements require you to hold an S safety rating across a certain number of races, so no shenanigans, people.

Speaking of achievements, I unlocked 23 in about 18 hours, though I could have easily unlocked more if I had focused on certain aspects of the game. Most of the achievements will come naturally over time, though Garage Loyalty (leveling 30 cars up to level 50) will likely take a while. Influencer (earn 10,000 credits from the community using a design) and Setting the Standard (earn 10,000 credits from the community using your tune) could also be a challenge. However, the real challenge will likely come from online multiplayer achievements such as Racecraft (gain at least 12 positions in a multiplayer race) and Pole Position (post the best qualifying lap time in a featured multiplayer event).

Summary

With its gorgeous visuals, cars that feel amazing on the track thanks to an excellent physics model, and an approachable and fresh RPG-like progression system that will get its hooks into most players that get behind the wheel, Forza Motorsport is easily one of the best racing games of the year.

* Sean spent about 18 hours thrashing cars around different tracks in Forza Motorsport, playing on an Xbox Series X. The publisher provided a game code for this review.

More Forza Motorsport stories:

Written by Sean Carey

Avid Xbox and achievement fan, Sean has committed to playing the best RPGs, racing games, and first-person shooters Xbox Game Pass and his precious free time will allow. Prior to joining TrueAchievements, Sean gained a degree in journalism from Solent University.