The racing in Forza Horizon 5 is pretty much the same as in the previous iterations of the game. Unlock the festival, race some more, unlock some other parts of the festival, and then race some more. You get a bit more fine tuning, as you can open various sections of a festival location, and prioritize the ones you like most.

Unlocking new sections of the festival and progressing through the story also unlocks houses that you can buy and that unlock perks (like Skill songs)

The single-player campaign has a ton of race opportunities, so there’s a lot to pick from. You also have the Stories, a set of side-quests from your NPC friends that send you to do various tasks in a variety of cars.

The types of race have remained the same: road racing, street racing, drag racing, dirt racing and cross country racing. Apex road races, Wilds dirt races, and Baja cross-country races. Some are lap-based, some are sprints from point A to point B.

I did a few races myself, experimented with a few cars like the Lamborghini Centenario, the ‘94 Ford Hoonigan Cossie, the Ford Performance Bronco R, but decided to go back to my old trustful Mini that I’ve used in Forza Horizon 4. More about it soon.

Forza Horizon 5 is bringing back the Eliminator, the “battle royale for cars” game mode. In Eliminator, you compete in a series of 1v1 races against other players in the map. You get new cars, upgrades, but if you lose a race, you’re knocked out of the game.

The Forzathon Live has been renamed to Horizon Arcade. You still do activities with people around you or friends, trying to rack up skill points, jump distances, speed-trap values and so on. Super fun, definitely playing a lot of these when I’m just wandering around.

Go racing and keep unlocking stuff and make your Horizon Festival the greatest the world has ever seen! Until then, there are some photos below.