Forza Horizon 5 releases next week, and fans of racing games couldn't be more excited. There hasn't been a new mainline entry in the Forza series since 2018, breaking the rotating tradition of Motorsport and Horizon annual releases. Adding to the general excitement for the arcade racer are the high review scores for the game. Many publications have called Forza Horizon 5 the best entry in the series and one of the racing genre's finest, resulting in a Metacritic score of 91, although that could change as more reviews get published.
While the news of high review scores is certainly exciting for anyone looking forward to the game, the scores have larger implications for the studio behind it, Playground Games, and any titles coming from the company in the future. The only thing that Playground has been lined up to work on publicly following Forza Horizon 5's release is Fable, the follow-up to the beloved Western RPG series, and expectations for the game are beginning to rise as more reviews for Horizon 5 get published.
Setting High Expectations for Fable
When it was first announced that Playground Games would be working on the Fable series, many fans were sceptical. The studio had previously not done any work on games outside of the Forza Horizon franchise, so expecting the company to be able to shift gears into creating an RPG seemed like a tall order. What's more, despite some controversies with the ending of the final installment, the Fable series is iconic, and any studio working on a follow-up to it has some big shoes to fill in the eyes of fans. Luckily, the high review scores for Forza Horizon 5 have set expectations higher than previously thought for Playground's first RPG.
It's important to note that Forza Horizon 5 and the Fable series share just about nothing in common, so the quality of one doesn't speak to just about anything for the quality of the other in terms of gameplay mechanics or story. That said, the high scores for Horizon 5 are reflecting well on the studio as a whole and its eye for quality game making. Although the development of Forza Horizon 5 likely has very little to do with Fable's development, the fact that Playground is able to make quality titles means that there might be more going for Fable than originally thought.
Additionally, there are still plenty of elements from Forza Horizon 5 that could make their way into Fable in one way or another. Firstly, Horizon 5 is one of the most visually stunning titles of the year and perhaps the best-looking game to release on Xbox consoles ever. The attention paid to the minute details of the cars and of its Mexican environment as a whole paint a pretty picture for the expected graphical fidelity of Fable. The Fable series hasn't ever gone for a realistic art style, but that doesn't mean that Forza Horizon 5's hyper-realism can't be utilized to make the game as beautiful as it can be while also embracing a more cartoonish art style.
The physics engine that Forza Horizon 5 uses also has potential to be a good addition to Fable. In general, games want to have a solid physics engine to build on, especially when making an open-world title. Because Forza Horizon 5 is as open-world as racing games get, that level of quality will likely have some bearing on Fable as well. All in all, the high review scores don't speak specifically to the quality of the upcoming Fable title, but they can begin to inform fans that the game has the potential to be on par with the arcade racer.
Forza Horizon 5 releases on November 9 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.