Forza Horizon 3 is a racing game released in 2016. It was created by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One and Windows. This game is the ninth in the Forza series and the third in the Forza Horizon sub-series. The game takes place in a made-up version of Australia. In the game, players take the role of the leader of the Horizon car festival. To grow the festival, players complete events to earn fans. Like earlier Forza Horizon games, the game has a large, open map where players can explore freely.
Development of Forza Horizon 3 began in 2014 after the release of Forza Horizon 2. Turn 10 Studios helped with the game’s creation, as they did for other Forza Horizon games. During development, Playground Games tested new technology and improved features from the previous game. The choice of Australia as the setting was made because of the country’s many different regions. A team from the game’s developers traveled to Australia to study the environment for the game.
Forza Horizon 3 was released in September 2016. At its release, critics praised the game’s map design, graphics, and amount of content. However, some critics noted that the game’s progression felt repetitive. The game received many awards and was nominated for several others. It sold more than 2.5 million copies in 2017. Additional content, including two expansion packs, was released over time. The game was followed by Forza Horizon 4, which came out in 2018.
Gameplay
Forza Horizon 3 is a racing game set in a large, open world that looks like a real place in Australia but is not real. The game world is about twice as big as the world in Forza Horizon 2. The game includes areas that are based on real places in Australia. In previous games, players were racers in the Horizon Festival. In this game, players become the director of the festival. Their job is to grow the festival across Australia by completing races, challenges, and stunts to earn fans. When players earn enough fans at a certain level, they can create new festival locations and unlock more events.
The game has three types of racing modes: Exhibition, Championship, and Rivals. Exhibition is a single race at one location. Championship includes multiple races across the game world. Rivals is a race where the player competes against an AI opponent by completing a time trial to beat the opponent’s time. A feature called Bucket List Challenges, first introduced in Forza Horizon 2, allows players to complete special tasks with specific vehicles. A new feature called Horizon Blueprint lets players customize races and Bucket List Challenges.
Besides racing and Bucket List Challenges, players can do other activities. Players can find "bonus boards" in the game world. When driven over, these boards give players experience points or discounts on fast travel. As players progress, they may hear rumors about "barn finds" to find and restore. Performing stunts with a vehicle earns "skill points." If enough skill points are collected, they can be used to buy perks that may give cars, experience points, in-game money, or driving advantages. Players can also join Forzathon competitions, which offer weekly challenges and rewards.
Forza Horizon 3 includes a vehicle AI called Drivatars, which was also in previous Forza games. Drivatars learn and copy the driving styles of real players. They appear in races as opponents and can be adjusted by the player based on difficulty. Drivatars can also be challenged to head-to-head races. If the player wins, they can recruit the Drivatar to their team, which gives extra experience points, fans, and in-game money. Drivatars can also be recruited in car convoys, where they follow the player and can be upgraded with skill points to help complete tasks.
Players can upgrade and tune parts of their vehicles, including body kits. A customization option called "Upgrade Heroes" allows players to use tuning and body kits to change a vehicle’s performance and appearance, though this option is limited to certain vehicles. Players can change the color of vehicles and their parts, and design custom liveries. These liveries can be sold in the in-game shop, which also includes an auction system for bidding on cars from other players. At launch, the game had 350 vehicles available.
Forza Horizon 3 includes online multiplayer modes. Players can play cooperatively with up to four players or compete against up to twelve players in races and minigames. As in previous Forza games, players can join clubs to compete against other clubs in races and minigames.
Because of licensing issues, vehicles made by Volkswagen are not in the game.
Development
Forza Horizon 3 was created by Playground Games, a UK-based company that also made earlier Forza Horizon games. Turn 10 Studios, the makers of the Forza Motorsport series, helped with the game’s development. The game was built using the ForzaTech game engine, which is used for most other Forza games. The development team began planning Forza Horizon 3 in 2014, after Forza Horizon 2 was released. They wanted to give players more freedom in the game than the previous version. They also aimed to improve the game’s quality by making changes to gameplay and graphics. One change was reducing the time players spent waiting on loading screens, as this could make the game feel less polished. Ralph Fulton, the creative director, said Forza Horizon 3 was a "big improvement" over its predecessor because of the team’s efforts to enhance the game.
Playground Games started with many possible locations for the game, but narrowed them down through research. They chose Australia as the setting because of its diverse environment and because they believed it could be a good location for future games. Mike Brown, a game designer, said Australia’s scenery was "perfect" for the game.
To create a realistic world, a team traveled to Australia to take photos of plants, rocks, and roads. They also worked to recreate famous landmarks, like the Twelve Apostles. Small details, such as the colors of phone boxes and garbage bins, and native wildlife, were included in the game. Playground Games said they represented every distinct part of Australia in the game, which is divided into six regions. However, the game’s map is not exactly like real life, as some locations are placed differently to improve the gameplay experience. Brown explained that this change was made to make the game more enjoyable for players.
Ralph Fulton said the team wanted to celebrate Australian car culture and share it with players worldwide. They included many Australian car models, such as Ford and Holden vehicles, and V8s and Utes, which are not well known outside Australia.
The game features locations like Coober Pedy in South Australia, the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Byron Bay in New South Wales, Ormiston Gorge in the Northern Territory, and Surfers Paradise in Queensland.
High-dynamic-range (HDR) technology was used to improve the game’s visuals. The team originally did not plan to use HDR, but after learning about the Xbox One S’s HDR capabilities, they decided to add it. The ForzaTech engine worked well with HDR because it could handle the brightness range of HDR. The team tested HDR on multiple televisions, which displayed it differently, making the process more challenging.
Over several months, the team tested new technology to improve the game’s visuals. One example was an HDR sky system. They tested this by taking high-resolution photos of the sky in Leamington Spa, England. Lighting artist Jamie Wood said the process involved more variety than the sky system used in Forza Horizon 2. Teams later traveled to Braidwood, New South Wales, to capture Australia’s skies, clouds, and weather patterns. They used HDR cameras to take thousands of photos over 24-hour periods, adjusting cameras and lenses regularly. They also recorded videos of the sky for about 30 days, capturing different weather conditions and times of day. This helped create a "dynamic weather system" in the game, with longer days and clouds that match weather patterns.
Lighting effects in the game are calculated in real time, which helps create a realistic sun and shadows. Shadows are based on how light interacts with objects and surfaces. Real-time computing is also used in the game’s voxel-based global illumination system to simulate how light bounces between surfaces. This helps light blend naturally into areas with different brightness levels.
Playground Games focused on making beaches an important racing area. To create realistic interactions between the sea and beaches, they worked with Rare, a game developer working on Sea of Thieves. Both teams shared and improved code to help create realistic sea environments.
Car models were mostly designed using CAD data from car manufacturers. For cars without CAD data, especially older or rare models, designers had to find details manually, sometimes taking weeks to locate them. For the Lamborghini Centenario, the game’s cover car, a photographer was sent to Italy to take photos and measurements. Because the Centenario was made of many materials, the team wanted to simulate it in great detail. They used 3D Studio Max to model the car based on the photos and measurements.
The sound team recorded real car sounds, including engine and exhaust noises. They used a looping model from Forza Motorsport 6 and a granular synthesis model to create realistic engine sounds. The looping model changes the pitch of engine sounds as the car speeds up or slows down. The granular model uses audio from cars accelerating and decelerating. Sound recordings were done by Warner Bros. Post Production, using microphones to capture sounds from cars, including high-sensitivity mics for loud vehicles that can reach 130 dB.
Ralph Fulton explained that "humans form their first impressions quickly," and that the first few moments of a game are crucial for making a strong impact.
Release
Forza Horizon 3 was announced on June 13, 2016, during Microsoft's E3 press conference. Ralph Fulton showed a gameplay demo at the event. The game was released on September 27, 2016. Players could buy three editions: Standard, Deluxe, or Ultimate. The Deluxe and Ultimate editions included extra car packs and exclusive content. Players who pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition could play the game early on September 23. Forza Horizon 3 supports cross-platform play and is part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program, which allows the game to be played on Xbox and Windows if purchased digitally.
After the game was released, some players experienced performance problems on Windows. There was also an issue with the wheelspin feature, which lets players earn cars or in-game currency. Sometimes, this feature gave players the maximum amount of currency available. These problems were fixed by Playground Games. Some players claimed they were unfairly banned after using hacking tools. Microsoft said players who believed they were wrongly banned could contact them for help. In January 2017, an update caused problems for Windows users, but Playground Games removed it.
In January 2018, Forza Horizon 3 was updated for the Xbox One X. This allowed better graphics, including 4K resolution, more detailed models, and improved visual effects. The game used Groove Music for custom soundtracks, but this feature was removed in March 2019 when Groove Music ended. Players could only use in-game music after that. On September 27, 2020, the game and all its downloadable content were removed from the Microsoft Store because it reached the end of its life.
Several downloadable content (DLC) car packs were released over time. Most packs included a few cars, while some had special themes, like cars from specific manufacturers or types. Examples include the "Motorsport All-Stars Pack," which has racing cars, and the "Porsche Car Pack," which includes cars made by Porsche. The "Hoonigan Car Pack" includes cars used by the Hoonigan Racing Division.
On December 13, 2016, the expansion pack "Blizzard Mountain" was released. This added a snowy mountain area with icy roads and snowy weather, making driving more challenging. Instead of earning fans, players collected stars to unlock events. Three new racing modes were added, and players received a customizable rally car pack with snow tires.
On May 9, 2017, Playground Games released the "Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels" expansion pack with Mattel. This added an archipelago connected by Hot Wheels tracks. The track included stunt sections like loops and half-pipes. Players could customize races using the Horizon Blueprint feature. Stars were still needed to unlock events, and a car pack was included with the purchase.
Forza Horizon 3 had two crossovers with other games. Players could get Halo's Warthog by playing Halo 5 or The Master Chief Collection on Xbox One or by completing challenges in Forza Horizon 3. On August 1, 2017, players received the Quartz Regalia from Final Fantasy XV through in-game messages. Final Fantasy XV players got a code to redeem the car. The Regalia took about 1,500 hours to program because there was no real-world data to reference.
Reception
Forza Horizon 3 received "universal acclaim" from critics for the Xbox One version, while the Windows version received "generally favorable" reviews, according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.
Critics liked the choice of an Australian setting. Colin Campbell of Polygon admired the realistic portrayal of Australia and enjoyed exploring different areas, especially the Outback, which he found the most enjoyable. Miguel Concepcion of GameSpot said Australia was a good fit for the Forza Horizon series and noted that off-road activities were more common because of the location. IGN's Luke Reilly praised the game's attention to detail, such as street signs and road markings, and its variety of landscapes. He said it was an improvement over Forza Horizon 2, where the terrain felt similar. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb agreed and said the world was more enjoyable to drive through than its predecessor. Nicholas Tan of GameRevolution liked the game's detailed landmarks and visuals, calling the world a "sight to behold."
Races received mixed reviews. Concepcion said the races were exciting and full of thrilling moments. Jaz Rignall of USgamer praised the variety of races set across different terrains, calling them a "step up" from the previous game. Andrew Reiner of Game Informer liked the race course layouts and said most races felt intense and exciting. However, he criticized head-to-head races against Drivatars, saying they were rarely fun and sometimes had balance issues. Towell also criticized head-to-head races, saying they were too easy to win and that races in general felt tedious. He found the track layouts uninteresting, unlike Reiner. Gerstmann said completing races felt repetitive and called the Championship game mode "overly redundant." Phil Savage of PC Gamer liked the Drivatar opponents, calling the AI system "broadly effective." He also appreciated that players could race against friends or people from their game club. Concepcion agreed, saying Drivatars were a good alternative to traditional AI systems. The Horizon Blueprint feature, a new race customization tool, was well received. Rignall liked how it allowed players to race any type of vehicle against similar ones. Reilly praised the feature for offering many creative ways to design races. Reiner said the feature let players customize events and called it a "smart move" by Playground Games.
Critics praised the game for its variety of content and the freedom it gave players. Concepcion said the game had a lot of content, comparing it to Burnout Paradise. Campbell appreciated the many activities players could do, saying exploring the world and participating in events was more enjoyable than racing. Both Tan and Brett Makedonski of Destructoid liked the ability to drive around the world without needing to complete races. However, Tan said there was little incentive to explore the world. Rignall was impressed by the wide range of vehicles available, saying they offered "an exceptionally broad spectrum of driving experiences." Reilly praised the game for having many car customization options.
Critics praised the game's graphics. Towell liked the realistic day and night cycles and rainy weather. Rignall was impressed by the car and landscape graphics, calling the game one of the "best-looking" on the Xbox One. Concepcion said the Windows version allowed players to customize graphics extensively. Reilly praised the game's lighting system, saying it made the world feel more unique and realistic.
Ralph Fulton said the success of Forza Horizon 3 exceeded Playground Games' expectations. The game was the seventh best-selling in Australia and the tenth best-selling in the United Kingdom in 2016. It was the ninth best-selling on the Xbox One in the United States in the same year. More than 2.5 million copies were sold in February 2017, helping the Forza series reach $1 billion in sales. In September 2018, the game surpassed 10 million players.