The game features cross-platform play between the two platforms. The game was released on 23 September for Ultimate Edition players, and 27 September for standard and Deluxe Edition players. It is the third Forza Horizon and the ninth instalment in the Forza series. It is set in a fictional representation of Australia. The game makes use of the Drivatar technology from previous Xbox One Forza games and features a four-player co-operative multiplayer campaign and cross-platform play , as it is a part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program.
Additional content has been released in the form of updates, car packs, and two world expansions, which also include additional cars. The game received universal acclaim from critics upon release.
On review aggregator site Metacritic , the Xbox One version holds an average critic score of 91 out of , based on 91 reviews, making it and the Windows version of 's Forza Horizon 5 the joint second-highest-rated Forza Horizon titles to date, only behind 's Forza Horizon 4 and the Xbox Series X and Series S version of Horizon 5.
The Windows version holds a score of 86 out of , based on twelve reviews. Forza Horizon 3 is a racing video game set in an open world environment based in a fictional representation of Australia. Three types of racing modes are available in the game: Exhibition, Championship, and Rivals. Exhibition is a single race at one location, whereas Championship contains multiple races dispersed throughout the gameplay world.
Rivals is a versus race against the player and an AI opponent, where the player has to compete in a time trial to beat the time set by the opponent. During Bucket List Challenges, the player is given a task to complete with a specific vehicle such as reaching a certain speed limit, for example. Apart from races and Bucket List Challenges, the player can engage in numerous other activities. Breakable boards called "bonus boards" can be discovered around the gameplay world; when driven over, they award the player with experience points or a discount on fast travelling.
Returning from previous Forza games, Horizon 3 features an implemented driving AI called Drivatars, which learns and mimics the driving abilities of Forza players. If the player wins the race, they will be able to recruit that Drivatar onto their racing team, [15] which allows the player to earn additional experience points , fans, and in-game currency. When in a car convoy, Drivatars will follow the player, and they can be upgraded by skill points to perform certain tasks throughout the game.
The player can upgrade and tune individual parts of their vehicles, with body kits for vehicles being available to the player as well. Horizon 3 offers a co-operative campaign for up the four players. Additional work was provided by Turn 10 Studios.
Playground Games initially started with a broad range of locations for Horizon 3 , with the list of locations narrowing with more research. To help create a convincing gameplay world, a team was sent to Australia to take thousands of photos for reference to help import into the game, with these photos consisting of plants, rocks, and road details, among many others.
Among these prototypes was an HDR sky system. A test was then conducted in Leamington Spa , England. Lighting artist Jamie Wood admitted that during the test, there was more variety in shooting a camera at a sky than the sky design system that was used in Horizon 2. With Playground Games taking these aspects into consideration, three teams of two were sent to Braidwood , New South Wales to capture Australia's more specific skies, clouds, and sun rays.
From October to the summer in the southern hemisphere , the teams performed the shooting process using HDR cameras. The cameras took thousands of photos with frame interpolation over 24 hour periods, alongside the lenses and light sensors needing to be cleaned regularly.
Videos of the sky were also taken, with the footage being about 30 days long overall. This further meant that camera exposures and filters had to be changed frequently to adjust to each time of day.
The footage of the sky was then imported into the game. The lighting effects including light direction and length in Horizon 3 are calculated with real-time computing , which helps simulate a realistic sun in the game.
This aids in generating shadows situated on how light is distributed and occluded based on surrounding objects and substances. The game also uses a voxel -based global illumination system to calculate the bouncing of light, which is also used with real-time computing.
The sky, other sources of light, and occlusion data is used to assist in which surfaces light bounces onto. This helps light accurately blend into darker areas of the game. High-dynamic-range rendering HDR , played a key role in the visuals of Horizon 3. Originally, there wasn't any thought of incorporating HDR while developing the game, but due to the development team discovering the HDR output of the Xbox One S , it was decided to start programming the feature.
To help investigate the feature, multiple televisions that supported HDR were bought. The development team later discovered that the televisions displayed HDR variously, which added much more intricacy to the process of developing the feature. Car models were mainly developed with the help of CAD data exchange with the car manufacturer, but for cars that didn't support CAD data exchange, designers had to use more expertise in order to simulate them more accurately.
Another issue was trying to track down cars for modelling details, especially rarer and older cars, with it sometimes taking upwards of weeks to locate some of them. Using help from the images and measurements, a mesh of the car was modelled with Autodesk 3ds Max. As the car also consisted of different types of materials, Playground Games desired to simulate all the materials to the "sub-pixel level", with designers of the game's Centenario having to figure out which materials had to be placed in areas of the car.
The beach and sea were found to be an important racing area for the development team, therefore much effort was put into allowing the sea to realistically interact with the beach.
To help assist in developing the sea, Playground Games contacted game developer Rare , who was working on Sea of Thieves at the time. As both developers were working on creating the sea in their games, they decided to share computer code , of which both developers improved and reiterated on. While in a conference hosted by GamesIndustry. He acknowledged that first impressions can change the way someone recognizes a game, with Playground Games conducting a study of first impressions before developing Horizon 3.
Two groups of test subjects both played the same Forza game for the same amount of time, but one group played in a sports car and the other played in a regular car. When asked about their experiences playing the game, the group that played in the sports car rated the game higher in multiple categories. As a result of such observations, Playground Games spent a large part of their development cycle about eighteen months developing and curating the first few scenes of the game.
In February , it was decided that the first few scenes would be split between the opening drive and the first of the game's events, with the decided route for the opening drive being finalized a month later.
By June , the decided route was being tested and concept art was drawn for the scenery that the player would see during the opening drive, although some concepts had to be adjusted or removed such as the rainforest in the game being made less dense. Problems also emerged with the car that the player would be driving in during the opening sequence, the Lamborghini Centenario. The Centenario resulted in being too fast for the player to observe the scenery as intended, requiring changes in the route and terrain.
As the opening drive also went off-road, a cutscene had to be instituted to switch the Centenario with a buggy to accompany the rougher land. Additionally, the first event after the opening drive had to be pushed back for further improvement, prompting modifications to be made to the opponent vehicle.
During the development process of the four-player cooperative campaign , the goal of the project was to enable all players to play with "as little friction as possible".
This made the development team generate a list of goals for an organized campaign. The team then developed a list of issues that influenced the campaign when assessing their project design.
The major issues mainly were:. With each issue, the team brainstormed a list of possible solutions, picking the solution that produced the least conflict between players. For the first issue, a screen appears that informs the player of how many fans they earned and festivals they can upgrade or open whenever they leave a cooperative session.
If players also completed races in a cooperative session that have not yet been unlocked in their single-player session, the race will appear as "completed" on the UI in single-player. The second issue was considered more straightforward, which introduced a rental feature that allowed players to borrow the session leader's car during a race. For the third issue, every race was converted into a team race between the players and the AI opponents.
A point system was then added for every opponent beaten. This created a structure that allowed inexperienced players contribute to the campaign even if they beat only one opponent.
Although the fourth issue wasn't part of the team's original goals, it did come up often during testing phases. To resolve the problem, a feature was implemented that notified the session leader's actions to all other players whenever the leader did something, such as starting an event.
Forza Horizon 3 was announced on 13 June during Microsoft's E3 press conference and displayed a gameplay demo during the briefing. The game was released on 27 September The Deluxe and Ultimate editions gave players several downloadable content car packs and other exclusive content, while players that pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition were also able to earn early access to the game on 23 September.
Initially after the game was released, there were various in-game performance problems that occurred concerning the game's compatibility with Windows An issue also arose involving the game's wheelspin feature, an award system that offers the chance for players to earn a new car or a certain amount of in-game currency, which may sometimes give players the maximum amount of currency that could be acquired in the game. These issues were later addressed and promptly fixed by Playground Games.
A Microsoft spokesperson later stated that players who felt that they were falsely punished can email them for investigation and removal of the bans. The corrupted update was later removed by Playground Games. In January , Horizon 3 was ported to the Xbox One X , enabling the graphics of the game to be changed on the console, including adding 4k resolution , higher polygon models , increasing sample quality , and enhancing other graphical features. Several downloadable content DLC car packs were released periodically in the game.
While most packs featured a small collection of cars, some packs had themes, such as being type specific or manufacturer specific. Examples include the "Motorsport All-Stars Pack," which includes several racing cars , [42] [43] and the "Porsche Car Pack," consisting of cars made by vehicle manufacturer Porsche. On 13 December , the expansion pack Blizzard Mountain was released. Similar to earning fans, acquiring certain amounts of stars unlocks more events around the region.
Likewise to Blizzard Mountain , the pack added a new area to the game, portrayed as an archipelago connected by real-world scale Hot Wheels stunt track pieces instead of regular roads. The game's track acts similarly to an actual Hot Wheels course, illustrated by different kinds of stunt sections, such as vertical loops and half-pipes. There have been two crossovers between Horizon 3 and other video game franchises. Players may also win the car by completing challenges in the game. Forza Horizon 3 received "universal acclaim" from critics for the Xbox One version, while the PC version of the game received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.
The choice of an Australian setting was well received by critics. Colin Campbell of Polygon admired the realistic portrayal of Australia and enjoyed exploring the various locales, particularly noting the Outback , where he felt was the most enjoyable region.
The races received mixed reviews. Concepcion felt that the races were thrilling and stated that they are "never bereft of split-second moments of gratification. Towell further remarked that generally, races were tedious, and in contrast to Reiner, felt that track layouts were uninteresting.
Rignall appreciated the feature, and liked how the feature allowed him to race any type of vehicle against similar types, letting him choose the vehicles he wants to race with.
Reilly praised the feature for the amount of creativity it provides for players, stating that races can be recreated in "dozens and dozens of different ways.