Forza Horizon 5 has already set a major record only one day after its debut. The popular racing game has now become the biggest launch for an Xbox Game Studio title across Xbox, PC, and cloud gaming.
Forza Horizon 5 launched on November 5, 2021, and has since received numerous glowing reviews from across the industry. It also crossed 4.5 million players post-launch, quickly becoming a fan favourite.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer took to Twitter to announce this special achievement. Additionally, he also mentioned that it beat Forza Horizon 4’s record by almost three times. The game has surpassed all expectations and is quickly becoming a strong contender for the Game of the Year award.
The hype around Forza Horizon 5 was always more than anticipated as the game had around 700,000 players before it even officially launched.
Forza has also been making progress in other realms as well. Recently, Playground outlined its commitment towards accessibility with a detailed video explaining its features supporting American and British Sign Languages. This feature is set to release sometime post-launch but it doesn’t have a date yet.
Furthermore, the game also allows players to create non-binary characters that can be assigned neutral pronouns. Additionally, characters can also have prosthetic arms and legs. Along with this, the game also offers a lot of freedom in terms of creativity as well. The EventLab feature introduced by Playground basically lets players build anywhere across the map. With over 400 vehicles available to try, it's definitely more than anyone can expect in a racing sim.
As it stands, Forza Horizon 5 is one of the highest-rated games of 2021 on OpenCritic and Metacritic. It was the highest-rated game for a short while but the score went down as more reviews poured in.
Nevertheless, Playground has definitely hit the ground running. PlayStation’s Gran Turismo 7 will have a tough competitor now and will have to offer something even better to match or surpass the benchmark Forza has set.