

A curvy slalom through Mexico’s streets? My GTB Fiorano with drift wheels equipped would let me glide around those tight corners. A cross-country race with a couple of lengthy straights? I’d need something that was both speedy but also had decent offroad stats, like my Lancer Evolution X. Playing on Expert with a number of the assists disabled, I found myself having to assess the route of each race before picking the right car for the job.

This makes Forza Horizon 5 particularly thrilling on the tougher difficulty settings. I found myself happily skipping between motors of all classes, and with each new vehicle unlock came a new toy to experiment with. As such, it’s now completely impossible to select a handful of cars to drive and be done with it. This year the team at Playground has put a ton of time into making each car look, sound, and feel unique. But that’s never been Forza developer Playground Games’ bag, and never has that been more apparent than in Forza Horizon 5. In most racing games, players will eventually find that one special vehicle and mostly stick by it until the bitter end.
