Forza Motorsport has always been a franchise that tries to capture the magic and charm of driving some of the world's greatest and fastest cars. Unlike its Forza Horizon cousin that focuses on exotic locations and festival-centric road racing, the track has always been the playground for Turn 10 Studios' crowning driving game. Announced at the Xbox and Bethesda Summer Showcase, Forza Motorsport is already capturing the hearts of fans, and excitement is building as to how it will look to advance the racing genre, and which cars it will use to do it.
On track competition is something that Forza Motorsport has excelled at for years, even besting the likes of Assetto Corsa and Gran Turismo in several key gameplay and presentation areas like lighting and physics, to name a few. However, a more obvious way to stand out in an ever-growing racing genre is the variety of cars on offer, with dozens of manufacturers and models being available to use in the pursuit of low lap times. This may seem admirable, but in order to make Forza Motorsport's car roster feel truly unique, Turn 10 would do well to limit the selection when the game releases in 2023.
The Size of Forza Motorsport's Car Roster
With Forza Motorsport 7 housing over 700 cars and Gran Turismo 7 still reaching over 400, there isn't a lack of options with either of Xbox and PlayStation's best racing games. On the surface it would seem that more choice is a good thing, offering new and exciting vehicles to take around some of the world's best circuits like Laguna Seca, Kyalami, and the iconic Spa-Francorchamps. However, with hundreds available, it's hard to make each car feel different. There are scores of them in Forza Horizon 7 that feel identical to one another, so it renders all the hard work of the artists and programmers largely redundant.
In reality, no two cars from different manufacturers feel the same, and it's a near-impossible feat to capture the intricacies of driving in the real world. Perhaps harder still is making over 700 unique vehicles feel different. Shrinking the car roster would allow the developer to make driving each feel new and perhaps even require a different approach to mastering them. Blasting through Maple Valley in an 800 horsepower hypercar or trundling along in a humble hatchback feel very different in other Forza titles, as they should, but the difference between similar cars has been largely non-existent in the franchise up to this point.
Car Customization is Crucial
Not only does Forza Motorsport 7 have hundreds of cars on offer, but it also includes an in-depth tuning and performance suite, much like the one in Forza Horizon 5. It's a staple of the franchise, and allows players to create and modify a car of their choosing to make it entirely unique. It's a source of so much fun, and the added ability to download other players' designs is the icing on the cake.
However, a roster of hundreds of cars not only heavily reduces the potential for each one to feel different, but it also impacts the way they can be changed, and the desire in the player to do so. There's not much point spending in-game currency tuning a steady saloon or budget car to be competitive against speedy sports racers when it won't feel significantly different to a more desirable car that can be purchased for a similar amount. More options will stifle the player's creativity, and in doing so will provide fewer player-driven choices when the garage starts to fill up.
Forza Motorsport will look to recapture fans of the racing genre, and its inclusion on Game Pass means that it will have the opportunity to find a larger audience than ever before. Adding more cars to the line-up may seem like a good way to make the product more appealing to fans of both the racing games genre and petrol heads at large, but with a handful already confirmed, it would be wise to trim the fat from the roster in order to make each vehicle feel fresh, exciting, and memorable.
Forza Motorsport releases Spring 2023 on PC and Xbox consoles.