Gran Turismo 7 was met with mixed reactions. Can the Forza Motorsport reboot match – or even surpass – its long-term rival?

WATCH: Is Forza Motorsport BETTER Than GT7? | Forza Motorsport Review

It’s been 18 years since the release of the original Forza Motorsport in 2005. Spanning 4 console generations, it’s forever been Turn 10 and Xbox’s answer to Polyphony and Playstation’s Gran Turismo series. Off the back of mixed reactions to GT7, there’s a clear opportunity for Forza to take the lead – but have they managed to do it?

Let’s take a closer look at Forza Motorsport, its pros and its cons, and try to answer the all-important question: is it worth it?

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Graphics

The first thing that hits your eyes is the visuals – and man, this game is beautiful. Making full-use of the Xbox Series X/S hardware, the combination of real-time ray-tracing and immaculately-designed environments make Forza Motorsport a real feast for the eyes.

Full day-night cycles, dynamic weather and ever-evolving track conditions are on every track, and at times, the graphics are some of the most lifelike I’ve ever seen in a racing game. The game punches you in the face with its stunning visuals right from the start, with early races at Maple Valley, Grand Oak Raceway and Laguna Seca giving you a small taste of what’s to come. Light bursts through the trees, dirt clouds kick up as cars go off-track, lifelike shadows adorn the racing surface – it achieves a superb level of visual immersion time after time.

Night races in full-wet conditions are where the graphics really shine. The spray, the excellent use of light and dark, the ray-traced reflections, it’s a sight to behold. Think the next-gen visuals are only on PC? Think again! Console players get three options; Performance, which prioritises running at 60 fps, Visuals, which ramps up the graphics but only runs at 30, and my favourite, Performance RT, which adds ray-traced reflections but remarkably still holds a solid 60 frames per second – a thoroughly impressive feat on the Xbox hardware.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. Some textures can look remarkably flat, especially when following a car with your headlights on, and I did experience some texture popping every now and then. If you’re a fan of the vibrant colours of GT7, Forza Motorsport’s much more muted colour palette might not be your cup of tea. At certain tracks and in certain weather conditions, the game can look a bit drab, dreary and grey – not what you want for an action-packed racing game. With the reliance on ray-tracing for a lot of the visual flair, some dark areas, especially in some of the fully-modelled interiors, can look a bit muddy.

Scratch below the picture-perfect surface and you will find things that don’t quite look right, but all in all, the game is very easy on the eyes.

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Driving Experience

The driving experience is, of course, the most important aspect of any racing game, and I’m happy to say that the handling has taken a giant leap forward from Forza Motorsport 7.

In previous Forza titles, the car often felt disconnected from the road, skittering about with very little “feel”, like you were floating above the track rather than on it. Thankfully, it’s much better here. The car feels firmly planted to the road surface, gripping up as expected and stepping out with a definite predictability.

On a wheel, and after turning a whole bunch of assists off and a lot of time tweaking my wheelbase settings, Forza’s style of force feedback – where lock-ups, slides and other car characteristics are overly-pronounced – gives you all the information you need to understand what’s happening with the car. It’s not winning any awards for realism – there’s certainly other titles that are far more true-to-life – but in terms of being a casual sim-like experience that’s both approachable and provides some depth, with its fully-adjustable assists and driver settings, it does a pretty good job.

If you play on pad, don’t fret – Forza Motorsport has absolutely nailed the controller experience. There are very few titles that even come close to being just as enjoyable on a pad as they are on a wheel, but the Forza Motorsport reboot has achieved it. Will you be faster on a wheel? Absolutely – but the difference isn’t huge, and you’re really not missing out on anything if you only have a controller. On a pad, the game hits the holy trifecta of communicating the cars’ behaviour, being reasonably forgiving, and still providing a profoundly enjoyable experience. It’s worlds apart from what Gran Turismo 7 feels like on a pad, and it really sets the standard for pad controls in racing games moving forwards.

When it comes to the UI, it’s clear that racing on the pad with the chase cam was the priority. In chase cam, the proximity arrows make total sense. In the cockpit cam, they’re on the verge of being actively unhelpful. The proximity arrows are always based on where the car is in chase cam mode, and doesn’t change for other camera positions, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on your mirrors to avoid contact whenever you commit to an overtake.

Speaking of contact, the Forza website proudly claims the reboot to be the “best sounding Forza Motorsport ever”. I’m not so sure. Screaming V10s and wheelspin sounds passable, but the sound of car-to-car contact is bordering on comical – made all the worse by how crash-happy the AI likes to be at the start of every race. Turn 10 have clearly gone for a more cinematic style in their sound design, with dramatic, bass-heavy thumps and bashes rather than the realistic crunching of metal, and whilst it certainly adds to the spectacle, it’s an odd juxtaposition in a game that otherwise presents itself as a sim-cade title for the masses.

On release, there’s over 500 cars to choose from, featuring everything from century-old Grand Prix cars to modern hot hatches, cutting-edge prototypes and everything in-between. That is down from Forza Motorsport 7, but it is – for the most part – 500 unique cars; none of the duplicates or carbon-copies in different colours that we’ve seen from Gran Turismo and others in the past. Custom liveries are available, and you can both share liveries you’ve designed and use ones that others have created. Every car in the game has a fully-modelled interior to explore, including painstakingly-detailed dashes, trunks and engine bays to feast your eyes on.

20 tracks are available on Day 1, combining real-world circuits such as Spa and Le Mans with original designs like Maple Valley, Grand Oak Raceway and the all-new Hakone Circuit. Many of these tracks have multiple configurations, so there’s plenty of variety to sink your teeth into. Three additional tracks have already been confirmed to be in development; Yas Marina – the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix circuit – is slated to arrive in November, an as-yet-unnamed circuit is coming in December, and the formidable Nordschleife enters the fray in Spring 2024. Forza Motorsport 7 featured 32 tracks and saw almost 100 cars added post-launch, so we’re certain there’ll be plenty more cars and tracks to come.

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AI Drivers

Competent AI can make or break any racing game, and for Forza Motorsport, it’s a tale of two halves.

Opening laps are total carnage. Anywhere in the midpack, the AI will happily go 3 or 4 wide, run completely off track for no reason, and has no qualms about punting you into next Tuesday if you’re in the same postcode. In lower difficulties, the AI can form single-file braking trains which can make the early laps a cakewalk. In higher difficulties, it’s a matter of survival.

Once the race settles into a rhythm however, it’s a whole different story. Gran Turismo 7’s AI opponents can be best described as moving obstacles – Forza Motorsport is the polar opposite. As the cars space out, the AI becomes much more challenging, being remarkably quick, consistent and tough to overtake – even seasoned sim racers will find the maximum difficulty to be testing the limits of your abilities. With a wide array of difficulty options, everyone will be able to find that middle ground that’s right for them, whether you want to lap the whole field, or have a race-long wheel-to-wheel battle for victory.

The Risk vs. Reward feature kicks things up a notch. Rather than qualifying to decide your grid slot, in each race, you get to choose which position you want to start in. The further back you start, the tougher your race – but the better your rewards will be if you make the podium. Combining this with the difficulty settings means you can get the experience you want every single race. Want to skip past a few races to get to one you’re really excited for? Whack down the difficulty, start near the front, and blitz your way to victory, then turn the difficulty up and start near the back for a true challenge when you’ve found the race for you – Forza Motorsport puts the entire racing experience into the players’ hands for each and every race.

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CarPG

Turn 10 joked that their CarPG system made Forza Motorsport a game where corners are the enemies – but after getting my hands on it, I know exactly what they meant.

Car upgrades are locked behind your Car Level. Each car has its own progression path, and you’ll unlock upgrades – and the Car Points with which to buy them – the more you drive the car, both in single player and online. Every corner, overtake, clean sector; you name it, you’ll get XP for it. This means that every car you jump into will start off stock until you’ve gained the levels and Car Points to upgrade it – and Car Points can’t be transferred between cars. Many fans were concerned that this would be nothing but a grind, but thankfully, it’s fairly quick to progress through the levels, and accumulating enough Car Points for the upgrades you want isn’t much of an issue.

Taking a car from Level 1 to the maximum Level 50 should take no more than a few hours, and it’s a great way to familiarise yourself with the car before strapping on all the go-faster bits – but 2-3 hours across 500 cars and it’s easy to see why this system isn’t for everyone. This may cause some to stick with a smaller roster of fully-upgraded cars rather than a broad and varied garage, but on the flipside, even players with limited time can take a car from stock to fully-upgraded in a short space of time.

Importantly, this means you’ll never be left feeling like there’s nothing to do. There’s always more cars to upgrade and more experiences to enjoy, and with many more cars and tracks on the way, Forza Motorsport has a tremendous amount of sheer gameplay value.

If you like to tinker with your setups, Forza Motorsport will keep you satisfied. It’s not as complex as ACC or iRacing, but there’s plenty of options to customise your anti-roll, damping, suspension and much, much more. There’s even the option to add various levels of ballast, which can significantly change how a car feels to drive. Not enough front grip? Stick some weight in the nose. Too tail-happy? Fill your trunk with bricks; it’s all down to what feels good for you. It’s another area where Forza’s approach to customisation – giving the player the tools to transform their experience into exactly what they want to play – really makes the game shine.

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Career & Multiplayer

The main Career Mode is called the Builders Cup, and revolves around 5 main tours that lead you into more exotic machinery as you progress. Each tour features a series of events focused on specific car types – such as hatchbacks, sports cars, sedans – certain car classes, or one-make series, like the MX-5 Challenge.

If you’re looking forward to beginning your career with a chunk of starter cash and the freedom to pick a favourite from dozens of available cars, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The Civic Type R, Subaru STi, or Mustang GT are your choices to start your journey, and once you’ve done that, you’re off to the races. The Career follows a linear progression path, with each new series requiring you to complete the ones before it. This does make the first few hours feel quite stale – especially as the early career frustratingly repeats the same few tracks – but with the ample difficulty and risk vs. reward options available, even back-to-back races in hot hatches can generate fun experiences each time.

A drawback to the linear progression is that the pure racing machinery – GT3s, prototypes, open-wheelers etc. – are locked off until later in the Career, but conversely to that, by the time you’ve completed all five tours, you’ll likely have a whole range of cars with decent progression that you can take into the multiplayer.

Speaking of multiplayer, although it’s changed massively from previous instalments, it’s unquestionably changed for the better. Each driver has a Safety Rating and Skill Rating which dictates the races you can enter and who you’ll be racing with. Races are scheduled for set times with open practice before lights out, and each race conveniently finishes before the next one starts. You’ve got the freedom to set your fuel level and tyres before each race, with the trade-off between softs and mediums being a real close call at some circuits, added a healthy dose of strategic depth.

It’s too early to have a full view of the multiplayer, but what I’ve experienced so far is certainly a solid foundation on which to build. The online racing has given me some of the most fun I’ve had in Forza Motorsport so far, so I can’t wait to see how it grows and develops as time goes on.

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Verdict

Forza Motorsport officially launches on October 10th, priced at £69.99 in the UK for the Standard Edition. If you want to play the game 5 days earlier, starting October 5th, you can snag the Premium Edition, which includes a Welcome Pack, Car Pack, Car Pass and VIP membership, for £89.99.

Is Forza Motorsport worth it? In my opinion, yes! Right out of the gate, Turn 10 has a winner on its hands, creating a racing game that’s equally as fun whether you’re relaxing on your couch with a pad, using a wheel and pedals for the first time, or you’re a hardcore sim racer looking for a new challenge. The visuals, the handling, the optimisation on both pad and wheel – it’s a fantastic experience for everyone, whether you’re a total newbie or a seasoned racing game veteran.

Is it perfect? Of course not; the AI could be much better at race starts, the CarPG system isn’t for everyone, and the sound design could do with some tweaks, but bring it all together and you’ve got a stellar experience that’ll have you coming back for more every single time.

The Forza/Gran Turismo rivalry has raged for over 15 years, and with the Forza Motorsport reboot, Xbox players finally have a next-gen title that matches – if not surpasses – Gran Turismo 7. It’s the antithesis of GT7 in all the key areas, and I’m certain it’s going to tempt some long-time Gran Turismo fans to move across into the Forza camp. Turn 10 has created an instant classic, and with further updates on the horizon, it’ll only get better with time. I cannot wait to see what’s next!

What are your thoughts on Forza Motorsport? Will you be purchasing it on release – or have you already pre-ordered? Do you think it can truly rival Gran Turismo 7? Let us know in the comments below.