After a light release schedule last year, Xbox’s 2023 is shaping up to be a lot stronger. One of the first party games that's leading the way, alongside the likes of Redfall and Starfield, is Turn 10 Studios' Forza Motorsport. As a soft reboot of the popular racing series, the title looks like it’s going to offer fans more of the graphical improvements they enjoy.
At January's Xbox & Bethesda Developer_Direct event, Turn 10 pulled back the curtain on some of those features. Two that stood out from the crowd were Forza Motorsport’s light-reactive shaders and paints. For several reasons, both look set to not only push the racing game genre to the next level, but next-gen graphics on a broader scale.
Forza Motorsport’s Shaders and Paints
During the January Xbox Developer Direct event, Turn 10 presented an extended look at the upcoming Forza Motorsport. Over the course of a roughly seven-minute presentation, the studio spoke about its desire to make the most technically advanced racing game yet.
One of the areas that stood out the most in its blueprint was the studio’s approach to graphics. While the game looks better than the previous entries in the Motorsport series, thanks in-part to how it targets the Xbox Series X, Turn 10 has implemented two features that look particularly exciting. For the first time in the series, Forza Motorsport will ship with light-reactive shaders. In addition to allowing the cars to appear at higher resolutions, these will react better to the game’s ray-tracing tech to make sure cars stand out in any kind of lighting environment.
Turn 10 has announced that Forza Motorsport will also feature a brand-new paint setup. Using new scanning technology, the studio says it will create more detailed and true-to-life colors. While the process sounds complicated on paper, players will easily spot the difference on the track, particularly through how it enhances each vehicle's damage models further.
Forza Motorsport's Graphics Will be a True Next-Gen Showcase
While it's worth mentioning that Turn 10 hasn't set a firm release date for Forza Motorsport yet, it isn't hard to imagine it being a graphical force no matter when it launches. Even though the industry has plenty of visually impressive titles like God of War Ragnarok and Red Dead Redemption 2, it's clear the racing game is aiming to take things toward unprecedented levels of detail. Thanks to the game's shader and paint features, Forza Motorsport looks set to push the levels of realism that are possible.
Realism has become a key driving force in the modern racing game genre, so it isn't surprising that a game like Forza Motorsport has become such a graphical pioneer. Games like Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 7 are also standout visual experiences, but Turn 10's racer is set to stand out from its rivals with extra detail through shaders and paints that take things beyond what other titles in the genre have achieved.
While ray-tracing is also a present part of Gran Turismo 7, it's only available in the game's replay modes. In order to get the most out of the game on PS4 and PS5, Polyphony instead prioritized performance. Forza Motorsport's shaders and paints should ensure that the gameplay will also be affected by visual updates, making it one of a few truly next-gen graphical showcases that are fully playable.
Forza Motorsport is scheduled to release in spring 2023 on PC and Xbox consoles.