The immense popularity of Xbox Game Pass these days has led to many older games getting an influx of new players. For a lot of multiplayer games, this kind of thing can be the shot in the arm they need to keep their online communities thriving, but in the case of one recent addition, 2017’s Forza Motorsport 7, not everyone is excited about it.
Despite a rocky start marred by its progression system and use of in-game purchases, the series’ most recent mainline entry has gone down as one of the best racing sims of recent years. It’s a distinction the game will likely be able to hold on to until the upcoming Forza Motorsport for the Xbox Series X eventually releases, and it’s helped the game maintain plenty of engagement among fans of more hardcore racers to this day.
As such, there’s been some friction between veteran players and the influx of newcomers brought on by Forza Motorsport 7’s addition to Game Pass. Now that the game is open to far more people, longtime fans who have been mastering it are suddenly finding themselves being matched more frequently with casual players who are only just starting to learn the nuances of the game’s realistic driving.
This, as highlighted by Reddit user xnvrdarren, can lead to some spectacular moments of clumsiness. They shared a clip showing a multiplayer race in Forza Motorsport 7 that immediately devolved into anarchy when most of the cars failed to clear the first turn, resulting in nearly all of the racers being caught in a massive pileup.
It’s understandable that players who have spent the last three years honing their driving skills are frustrated having to deal with inexperienced players online, but it seems like that may just be par for the course. Many of the comments in xnvrdarren’s post suggest that this has been a recurring issue for them long before Forza Motorsport 7’s Xbox Game Pass debut, and as one put it, “clean racing was never a thing on this game.”
It’s possible that longtime players will adjust and make do with all of the new players, and that this issue will eventually blow over. But with more people playing the game now that it’s on Game Pass, there’s always a chance that developer Turn 10 Studios might actually change up the game to help newcomers ease into it better, thus reducing the likelihood of player pileups and similar mishaps. Whether it will come to anything like that remains to be seen, though.
Forza Motorsport 7 is available for PC and Xbox One.