Forza Horizon 3 Demo Impressions

Forza Horizon 3 is on the right side of the road.

Update: You can read my full review here: Forza Horizon 3 Review

I have no shame in admitting that I absolutely love the Forza series. I’ve loved every single one since I first got my hands on Forza Motorsport 3 back when I bought my Elite model Xbox 360. However, I doubt you’re reading this to hear about my historical fevor for the series. You’re probably wanting to hear about the demo…

On The Right Track

Instead of simply adding a couple new features and calling it good, Playground decided to take a cue from their studio’s name and make Forza Horizon 3 a veritable playground. In my time with the demo, I created my own character named ‘Shelby’ (though I had to pick it from the list of female names…), jumped into several different types of cars, learned about my role as the leader of the festival, and was turned loose in the extremely varied environment.

I’d just like to reiterate this point: players take on the role as the leader and organizer of the Horizon Festival. It’s your responsibility to draw in fans by doing cool stuff and winning races in order to build up the hype around the event so you can attract better drivers, thereby expanding the reach of your event.

Forza Horizon 3 also adds in some much needed variation to the gameplay, adding in new types of events and stunts to perform outside of simple races and speed traps. Additionally, players can also jump in with three other players to tear around Australia in 4-player co-op, create their own radio playlists via Microsoft Groove (a paid subscription) to add onto the eight other radio stations, and even customize their own license plates.

The good news is that Forza Horizon 3 holds true to the formula of the other titles in the series, while still improving on it. Cars handle very similarly to how they perform in the previous games, customization will still be paramount (though it is absent in the demo), and the world is wide open and extremely large.

The demo, despite being a short experience that only seems to scratch the surface of what’s being offered, left me with a big, stupid grin on my face the entire time. I can’t wait to get my hands on the real deal so I can get the ball rolling on my own take on the Horizon Festival.

September 23rd can’t come soon enough.

Forza Horizon 3 will release on September 27th, 2016 on Xbox One and PC. The Ultimate Edition will be available on September 23rd, 2016 and include the Car Pass and VIP pass.