Forza Horizon 2 logo

The weeks preceding E3 2014 have brought announcements of a number of major titles, and for those who love imagining the smell of burnt rubber (since games aren't yet available in Smell-O-Vision) and chasing the far-off horizon, there could be no news more welcome than Microsoft's announcement of Forza Horizon 2, being developed for Xbox 360 by Sumo Digital and for Xbox One by Playground Games.

Thanks to Microsoft's E3 2014 Xbox press conference we can now confirm a release date for Forza Horizon 2: September 30, 2014. As mentioned before, the game will include a day/night cycle, dynamic weather, the Drivatar system from Forza Motorsport 5, and it will be set in Southern Europe.

Playground's Creative Director Ralph Fulton told IGN that the Xbox One version of Forza Horizon 2 will run at 1080p and be locked at 30fps. The latter decision has been something of a contentious issue recently, especially for gamers with powerful machines who want to run their games at the highest framerates possible. The reasons for doing so have been mixed - Ready at Dawn, for example, has said that The Order: 1886 will be locked at 30fps in order to give it a more "filmic" look - but Fulton says that Playground is more concerned with making sure that the framerate doesn't drop at crucial moments.

"I think what we did on Horizon was demonstrate that, and this is really important, a locked frame rate that's absolutely solid and never drops is the most important thing for our game. 30 [fps] actually enables us to realize that experience." He continued, "I think I remember that's always a hot-button topic, until a game comes out and people go, 'Oh, this actually really works.' But 1080p was an absolute must for us; it's the benchmark for next-gen."

There's still a fairly long wait until September 30, so those racing fans who are still enjoying Forza Motorsport 5 should take the opportunity to play "Nürburgring," the third add-on for the game, which is now available to download for free. "Nürburgring" follows on from previous free add-on tracks "Road America" and "Long Beach," but according to Xbox News it is "the biggest and most challenging example of content that Turn 10 has ever created," and for the first time since the original appearance of the Ring it has been laser-scanned to account for changes made to it and the most recent advances in technology.

Stay tuned to Game Rant all of this week for all of the latest news from E3 2014.

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Forza Horizon 2 will be available on Xbox 360 and Xbox One from 30 September, 2014.

Source: Microsoft, IGN