Forza Horizon 5 has proved to be one of the most well-received games of 2021. Despite the game's successes, Forza Horizon 5 still has plenty of bugs and problems that Playground Games has yet to address. Since Forza Horizon 5 is a very large game, and Playground polished out most of the bigger issues, many of these problems aren't a big deal until players run into them. But Playground is definitely getting around to them, as shown in the latest update for Forza Horizon 5.
Like previous Forza Horizon 5 updates, this patch is purely focused on fixes and improvements. New content will have to wait for the arrival of Series 2. Multiplayer issues are a particular focus this time around, but Playground touches on dozens of different bugs across multiple parts of Forza Horizon 5. Again, it's a very big game.
Starting with the multiplayer fixes, Playground jumps around with updates to Horizon Open, convoys, and Horizon Arcade. For example, all Horizon Open Street Races will now be at night, The Goliath has been removed from the Horizon Pool because it led to too long of a wait between competitions, and a reduction in 5 to 3 Open Racing events until a car change. Regarding Horizon Arcade, the key notes are that Forza Horizon 5 will start prioritizing "grouping players in larger groups" to start events, and that target scores will now scale based on total participants.
As for other major issues that have been fixed, the notorious Seasonal PR Stunt bug that told players "1mph/1ft/1m more" is no more. Racers can now trust that their stuntwork really is good enough. The Eliminator battle royale mode will now actually randomly disperse car drops instead of having static dispersion. An exploit that allowed players to alter the tune of their car just as a race is starting has also been fixed, as well as other more niche exploits.
While most Forza Horizon 5 players likely weren't significantly impacted by most if not all of these bugs, some of them are still pretty significant. The PR Stunt bug, for example, likely denied many players Seasonal points. And the Horizon Arcade changes may lead to thousands of players who had been avoiding the game mode to revisit it once more.
The small issues that only impacted certain players are what show Playground is taking post-launch polish for Forza Horizon 5 seriously, though. Forza Horizon 5 was a successful game at launch, but it's easily a better and more playable game now. There are still problems to fix, but players can reliably trust that Playground is doing its due diligence with Series 2 on the horizon.
Forza Horizon 5 is available now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.