Skip to main content

Forza Horizon 5 is basically a Fast & Furious video game

For years, Forza has been a bit of a punch line for gamers. Travel back to any Microsoft E3 presentation and you’ll find gamers rolling their eyes at the inevitable Forza segment. Racing games have long been a niche in video games and have struggled to win over the so-called “hardcore” fan base.

Forza Horizon 5 looks like it’s finally going to break through the cynicism barrier. Microsoft’s upcoming game isn’t your traditional racing game driven by the kind of auto jargon that only a die-hard would love. Like its predecessors, it’s more of an open-world adventure game that takes the genre off-road. It provides a more creative set of ideas and objectives for those who just don’t find driving around in a circle that exciting.

Recommended Videos

I caught a new glimpse of the game ahead of Tuesday’s Gamescom Opening Night Live stream and found myself entirely bought in on what Forza Horizon 5 had to offer. At first, I wasn’t sure why it had me so excited. Then it hit me: It’s essentially a Fast and Furious video game.

F stands for Forza … and family

The short clip I saw showed four different cars exploring Forza Horizon 5’s Mexican landscapes. The video doesn’t begin on a racetrack or a backroad. Instead, we’re on an airplane high up in the sky. The backdoor opens and a Ford Bronco carefully rolls out, plummeting through the air. A parachute opens, it touches down on a dirt road, and then takes off. A second car quickly crosses its path, initiating a sort of unofficial “street” race.

The Bronco keeps racing forward until it reaches a metal guardrail. It blasts through it, hurtling through the air and landing perfectly in the middle of a race that’s already in progress. It’s the kind of action movie sequence that you won’t see in something like the F1 series.

A car races underneath a plane in Forza Horizon 5.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

My brain immediately raced to the Fast and Furious film franchise, which has taken on many forms during its 20-year run. While the series started as a mid-budget drama about street racing, it’s upped the ante with every film since. Fast Five is a full-on heist film where cars steal a vault and drag it through city streets on a run from the cops. This year’s Fast 9 features some out-of-this-world stunts — literally — that destroy its own rules.

That’s the same vibe I get when watching Forza’s cars plummet out of airplanes or make 20-foot leaps and come out unscathed. By the end of the clip, I’d seen a Corvette Stingray barrel through a massive dust storm and a Porsche Desert Flyer zip through a jungle. The latter is quite literally the set piece that opens Fast 9, as Dominic Toretto and his family of drivers evade cars while weaving through trees.

Diesel power

Forza Horizon 5 isn’t quite as unhinged as the Fast saga — at least not yet. It’s still mostly grounded in reality, bearing more similarities to the first three films in the Fast and Furious series than the past six. The focus is firmly on spotlighting cool cars (like the Mercedes AMG One), scenic locations, and various races. However, the Forza Horizon series has shown that it’s willing to get a little silly. Forza Horizon 4 famously featured a full Lego expansion that added blocky cars to the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a Halo Warthog join the race within a year.

Multiple cars race down a hill in Forza Horizon 5.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Watching the new footage, I’m already thinking three Forza Horizon games ahead. I can see a world where Microsoft tries to up the ante with the series, delivering more spectacle with each game and setting it apart from the more straitlaced Forza Motorsport series. When I see a car parachute out of an airplane, I’m imagining one making an impossible leap between skyscrapers like in Furious 7.

In my mind, that’ll be how Microsoft will ultimately overcome a decade of disinterest from cynics. Forza Horizon 5 can combine the tight mechanics of a niche genre with the broad appeal of a silly blockbuster to convert the unimpressed. All it needs is Vin Diesel.

Forza Horizon 5 launches on November 9 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It’ll be available on Xbox Game Pass at launch.

Giovanni Colantonio
As Digital Trends' Senior Gaming Editor, Giovanni Colantonio oversees all things video games at Digital Trends. As a veteran…
We predicted gaming’s 2024 last December. Here’s what we got right (and wrong)
Nintendo Switch.

It's my favorite time of the year at Digital Trends. Every time a year ends, I like play prognosticator and predict what's going to happen in video games the following year. I've run this series for the past few years and I often find that my guesses are spot-on come December. That's always a rewarding moment as I reflect on a long 12 months. On the flip side, sometimes I'm so embarrassingly wrong that I get a good laugh to end the year.

This year, it's the latter.

Read more
The biggest gaming news of 2024: Concord flops, Palworld vs. Nintendo, and more
A pal aiming a gun in Palworld.

2024 was a rough year for the game industry. It was dominated by layoffs, significant strategic shifts from some of the biggest companies in the industry, and gigantic live service flops that demonstrated just how hard that space is to break into. In last year's iteration of this article, I wrote that it felt like I was covering a "video game industry bound to head into an odd 2024 that lacks the known quantity bombshells of this year and continues to reel from layoffs." That certainly proved to be true.

That's not to say it was all dour. Some fantastic games were released, with some surprise viral successes like Palworld and Black Myth: Wukong showing how the right games since have the potential to resonate with millions of players. The video game industry is hurting, though, and looking toward 2025, the launch of Nintendo Switch's successor and Grand Theft Auto VI will have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get the industry out of this rut. These news stories shaped the video game industry's tumultuous 2024.
Layoffs did not slow down

Read more
The best PlayStation 5 games of 2024: Astro Bot, Helldivers 2, and more
Best PS5 Games of 2024

For the first time in the PlayStation 5's lifespan, Sony couldn't rely on surefire bets from beloved series like God of War or Marvel's Spider-Man to keep players invested throughout 2024. It was up to lesser-known PlayStation franchises and third-party developers to craft the brunt of Sony's 2024 exclusive.

2024 wasn't all smooth sailing for Sony due to the failure of Concord. Thankfully, there were plenty of bright spots as underrated PlayStation series came into their own, and companies like Konami and Square Enix delivered much-needed console exclusives. Astro Bot has cemented itself as PlayStation's latest mascot, and Helldivers is a top-tier live service IP. On PS5 only, we saw games like Final Fantasy VII and Silent Hill 2 reimagined for a new generation. Plus, PlayStation also decided to introduce Horizon to a younger demographic of gamers and incubate some potential new series with Shift Up and Team Ninja.

Read more