Forza Horizon 4 is the best open world driving game you can buy

After six years spent on three previous periods on two consoles, it is fair to say that Forza Horizon the franchise is well established. This concept should look familiar to you now: an open world driving game that you can play solo or online, with a traveling music festival in the background. This is the work of Games Games, built on the bones of the Forza game engine developed by Turn 10 for even longer run Forza Motorsport series. Until now, the Horizon Festival has visited Colorado, the Mediterranean and Australia. And in Forza Horizon 4it's the turn of Britain.

If the developers of Playground were lazy, they could just dust off the last game and build a new map to replace it, with the land soon known as Brexitopia. But the last two years have involved more than just building a new map. There are new features online with up to 72 players per session. In addition to the dynamic weather and the days that turn into nights, there are now seasonal transitions, each bringing new challenges. There is a complete and welcome absence of loot boxes or microtransactions – something that will undoubtedly be good news. And we even have a presence of at least one other blockbuster game.

In our tests, we found the two options of X – "performance" and "quality" – with their advantages and disadvantages. Barreling through Horizon 4Cluttered cities and leafy hills at 60 frames per second are perfect, but Playground Games also has the entire effects pipeline in its 30fps, 4K mode. Moreover, as we often point out, HDR effects always look better with more pixels, and Horizon 4 It looks great during its most spectacular races (especially when the seasons change and the puddles capture incredible sunsets). You will want to try both and choose a favorite. (Unfortunately, the exchange between 1080p and 4K on an X requires a complete restart of the game each time.) For a game that gives you a range of almost dizzying things, Horizon 4 begins relatively uncomplicated. As with the previous installments, your introduction to the world is your reader for the festival. This time, it takes place in four stages, each showing a different season wisely. Then, it's about designing your avatar, choosing your first race and earning credits and building a reputation.

The first hours are spent in the prologue. This takes you through the first four seasons, freeing up other areas of the map as you progress, and then all the online features of the game once you reach the fall. After that time, all matches will be synchronized for day / night and season, which change every Thursday at 14:30 UTC.

How you progress is entirely up to you. There are road races, dirt races, cross-country races, "illegal" street racing and drag racing. Too conventional? In this case, try one of the flagship events, which might ask you to run against a hovercraft or a train. (These replace the challenges of Bucketlist in Horizon 3.) Or maybe you prefer a little tour de force for a film, helping a director who looks a lot like an illegal cloning experiment involving Sean Bean and Timothy Dalton.

If that is not enough, there are many other ways to stay busy. Tag or zombie games in disused quarries? Check. Abandoned cars hiding in barns waiting to be found? Check. You can even start businesses, such as supercars, to earn a small fee. Even driving will help your stats: you'll gain influence by setting fast times with speed cameras, discovering new roads, or just hurrying, sliding slides and jumping as before. Gotham Racing Project.

Discuss online aspects of a game like Horizon 4 Pre-launch is always tricky because it is too early for real communities to be formed. I can say that if you are like our misanthrope Lee Hutchinson and you never want to interact with a human player, you will not be.

When you drive freely, your world will be populated by 72 other players. However, unless you specifically choose to engage with them, you can ignore their presence. Horizon 4The Autoghost feature remains active by default unless you gather to form a convoy or take part in a race or challenge (PvP or co-op). Every hour, at the hour, there is a #Forzathon Live event; If you choose to join, you and up to 11 other human players will work together to beat some goals (like scoring a number of points adrift). If you succeed, you get points to spend in a special Forzathon store (in-game).

After several days of pre-release gameplay, I can say this: there is so much to do that it never looks like a game, and the game is rather generous when it comes to rewarding you. As you might expect, rewards increase with difficulty. Completing a series of three races against average opponents could bring you a prize: a car, credits, maybe a new addition to the wardrobe of your avatar. Completing the same series against more competent enemies can bring you three times more.

This new version is not perfect though. The loading times are long and, on some occasions, the game seems to be content with one of these transitions. The music, once one of the highlights of the franchise, did not bring me much, aside from Timeless, the classic radio station. (The proof that I'm finally middle-aged, I suppose.) Although the scenery is beautiful, even in 1080p, it has happened that my standard Xbox has reached 30 frames per second. And then there are the problems that my colleague Sam Machkovech has encountered with the Windows 10 version, described in the box.

Despite these reservations, I found myself Horizon 4 more than I expected, especially since the likes of my racing game are definitely geared towards the end of the spectrum of simulation. While open-world driving games are disappearing, this one may well be the best in the market.

Good:

• Great Britain looks fantastic, no matter the season.
• More than enough to keep you busy for weeks.
• 450+ cars and they all look great.
• High concentration online does not compromise the game solo.
• Most likely the most affordable high-end racing game

The bad:

• Long loading time.
• Some frame rates decrease with the Xbox One version.
• Problems with Windows 10 and Universal Windows Platform.

The ugly one:

• Maybe I'm getting older but the music is doing little for me.

Verdict: Buy it.

Sam Machkovech contributed to this review.

Image of list by Microsoft