Forza Horizon 4

[Parky]

So it looks like Horizon 4 has been officially announced during the Microsoft conference at E3, once again exclusive to Xbox and the Windows store:

Today, during the Xbox E3 2018 briefing, we showed how seasons change everything in the worldwide debut of Forza Horizon 4, the latest entry in the award-winning Forza Horizon series. This highly anticipated follow-up to 2016’s breakout hit Forza Horizon 3 brings players dynamic seasons in a shared open-world that change every week. Experience beautiful, historic Britain in spectacular native 4K and HDR, collect over 450 cars, and become a Horizon Superstar. Forza Horizon 4 will launch worldwide on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Xbox Game Pass on October 2, 2018 as an Xbox Play Anywhere title.

• Seasons Change Everything – Forza Horizon 4 features dynamic seasons that change gameplay, unlocking new events and routes, impacting driving conditions, and transforming open-world exploration – all in native 4K and HDR. Players will be able to master driving in dry, wet, muddy, snowy and icy conditions in a shared world where everyone experiences changes in time of day, weather and seasons together.
  
  
• Open-World Freedom – Forza Horizon 4 allows players to choose their path to becoming a Horizon Superstar. We’re proud to introduce two of our most fan-requested features – a brand new Route Creator that lets you design and share your own custom race routes anywhere in the open world and the option to play at 60 frames per second for players on Xbox One X.
  
  
• Collect Over 450 Cars and Customize Your Horizon Life – With over 450 cars from more than 100 licensed manufacturers, Forza Horizon 4 features the largest and most diverse Horizon car roster yet with all the customization options Forza players love, like new Drift Suspension upgrades and driver personalization with character clothing, accessories and emotes. And for the first time in the Horizon series, players can own property that unlocks new items and gameplay perks.
  
  
• Go it Alone or Team Up – Players can choose to play alone, cooperatively or join multiplayer for casual fun or ranked teams. In addition, integrated Mixer broadcasting and spectating features add to an already fun and rewarding experience.
  
  Available for pre-order starting on Monday, June 11 at your local Microsoft Store and on Microsoft.com, Forza Horizon 4 arrives worldwide on October 2, exclusively on Xbox One, Windows 10 PCs and Xbox Game Pass. Deluxe and Ultimate Editions will also be available for pre-order, which offer the base game, Formula Drift Car Pack and Forza Horizon 4 Car Pass. In addition, Ultimate Edition owners will receive early access to the game on September 28, the Day One Car Pack, two expansions and VIP Membership.
  
  https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/06...-and-open-world-adventure-in-forza-horizon-4/

**FIRST DLC ANNOUNCED**

Fortune Island will release on December 13, 2018 and takes players to the remote northern reaches of the British Isles. If you're familiar with the region, you know to expect extreme conditions like fierce lightning storms, dangerous cliffs, dirt roads, and the aurora borealis.

Fortune Island should be available as part of the Forza Horizon 4 Expansions Bundle which gives players with two game expansions for $34.99. However, if you already own Forza Horizon 4: Ultimate Edition or the Forza Horizon 4: Ultimate Add-ons Bundle, you'll receive Fortune Island at no cost.

OCUK Clan/Team Thread
Benchmark/Performance discussion thread

 

[Parky]

Need to get around to downloading the demo over the weekend, unfortunately I deleted all of the normal windows apps including the store not long ago and have struggled to get them back.

Gonna have to do a bit of tinkering it seems.

 

[Parky]

To be honest they look great even at 1080p, I never once had a moment where I thought the visuals looked poor in FH3. I did however have many moments where the weather and lighting were in that sweet spot making the game look stunning, good enough to stop and take photos.

 

[Parky]

I loved FH3, but I got by the save sync bug and lost all progress, everything! I have Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels DLC so im starting from scratch..

It might be worth posting in the official forums, I had that bug at one point.

I posted in the forum and somebody sorted it in a way, they gifted me the total earnings I'd made so far as well as all of the horizon and forzathon cars I'd earned.

I basically started a new game from level one with over a hundred million in the bank, all the prize cars I'd earned (plus a few extra that he'd gifted).

 

[Parky]

Forgive the ignorance, is there a story / career mode in this and if so who detailed / immersive is it?

Been thinking about selling my G27 setup as I don't use it.

There is a single player career of sorts, you essentially travel to races and events around the map and compete using different classes of cars. The tracks/routes are usually pretty diverse, some might be road only, others are dirt or a mixture of both. The more you complete the more points you gain into leveling up an area of the map and unlocking even more difficult/rewarding races.

There are plenty of collectables dotted around that will give prizes, as well as weekly challenges that will reward you with cash or rare cars, sometimes ones not available to buy outside of the auction house. A lot of of these can also be collected in multiplayer free roam as well so it ends up being quite fun switching between the two.

 

[Parky]

Funnily enough I'm looking forward to making some more paint jobs and liveries this time around, I'd actually started to spend a lot more time working on the cars visually in FH3 towards the end. Hopefully the import feature works well in this one and I don't lose all of my previous work.

 

[Parky]

Those rewards look a little skimpy compared to previous games

 

[Parky]

The cloud sync in these games is painfully slow, I sat for around 45 minutes earlier as it pulled across previous designs. Made sure I bought the F50GT straight away, I love that car.

Also played around with the Ascari in the snow, I think that is my favourite season already.

Spoiler

 

[Parky]

So how does this compare to Forza Horizon 3 guys? I still have not purchased either. I prefer the sights of Australia if I am honest. The UK can wait, I see it all the time, pot holes and all

That said, is the general game, graphics, sound etc much better in this? If so I might as well skip FZ3 and go straight to this

My initial impressions after a few hours are that it will be a better game than FH3:

• Driving mechanics are very much the same, as is the tuning and upgrade system
• Graphics are slightly improved in a few areas, better shadows at night, better snow effects and some lighting improvements
• Sound is generally good so far, no doubt there will be a number of copy/paste sounds from FH3 & FM7
• The seasons actually make a good difference, especially winter as the driving conditions change drastically road to road and large parts of the map become unrecognisable (Rivers and lakes freeze to create new areas/routes)
• Everything has been split up to have it's own level progression, e.g different levels and rewards for road and dirt races, as well as stunts, car collection level and even marketplace levels. Each car now has it's own skill tree rather than one universal tree.
• You get hammered with rewards all the time, constantly getting more credits, wheelspins and rewards for levelling in each of the new progression trees. The car skill trees even give wheelspins and credits.
• My only real negatives at the moment are that the menus have become a little tricky to navigate with all these new things, it's a bit overwhelming until you figure everything out. They still haven't made claiming your DLC cars easier, you still have to go through the whole process of buying each one individually. Some of the destructible terrain is a little jarring as well, you fly through old stone walls with little impact and it feels a bit strange.

 

[Parky]

I like the look of this and am tempted to purchase. I've not bought a game for a few years!

Two questions

1. Do you have to pay extra/Subscribe to play online/Multiplayer
2. Will my GTX960 GC be ok? I've got the Demo downloading so I guess that'll answer my question

2. Your 960 might struggle a little unless you lower some of the settings, there was a handy video below benching a lot of older GPUs and the 960 doesn't fare very well at ultra settings. That is from an intensive benchmark though so you may see better results during normal gameplay.

 

[Parky]

I'm getting the problem where it loads to the initial splash screen and then crashes out. Works fine on my other 2 pcs, just not this. I know people have had problems when Afterburner and riva statistics server are running but I have neither on the system in question.

Have you checked that the latest Windows updates are installed?

That always seems to cause me issues.

 

[Parky]

Online has been poor over the last few nights, random disconnects and ghost lobbies. Pretty much every one I join I can only see a handful of the players that are listed (player list will show 30+ roaming but none are visible), this is also causing issues with the forzathon live events, I've had a few instances now where 3/4 of the players disappear as the event begins leaving you unable to complete all the objectives due to the low numbers.

 

[Parky]

What's the 1/4 mile time for that McLaren?

 

[Parky]

Hmmm I missed the Ferrari 812 the other week and was undecided whether to pay the 1.4 million buy it now prices in the auction house for one. After reading around and seeing that those prices were right I checked the auction house again and now they're listed for 20 million buy it now, some even the same cars I'd seen a few days ago, seems the high level players have gotten around to nabbing most of them already. Will just have to wait until it becomes available as a prize again.

Annoys me that they are able to flip cars at ridiculous prices like that, meanwhile I've got 2 extra Aventador FE cars in my garage that I can only sell for 650k buy now and there's a person currently selling 3 for 20 million each.

 

[Parky]

My eyes lit up the first time I saw one of those popups about the drivatar difficulty, shame it's the total bonus it refers to and actually only gives you a small boost.

 

[Parky]

Ferrari 599XX is a good alternative as well, I use it quite often and it's pretty grippy, even with the aero kits removed.

 

[Parky]

It would be nice if there was a way to set challenges in the club, would be pretty fun to have different speed zones/drift zones on rotation where we could all compete.

 

[Parky]

Took a few goes I won't lie

Not really driven the Sesto much, seems even more mental than before though.

 

[Parky]

Well this escalated quickly...…

 

[Parky]

well i tested both cars on the motorway . 720s and the lambo and both will hardly pull 250 flat out down the hill with max power tune .. Sooooo im not sure how yer taking 4 corners flat out within a few mph of there max speed

Which engines are you using? The racing V12 seems to be the one to go for, even if it shows as having slightly less power than others. Bear in mind that the 720s and 720s PO are slightly different, the PO version seems a little more beefed up, similar to the Aventador FE. Also makes a big difference tweaking all the camber, suspension and aero settings.

I'll see about getting my run on video showing the line I take if you'd like, might be easier to see how we are taking the corners and at what speeds etc.