Forza Horizon

Overview

Forza Horizon is a 2012 racing game developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios for Xbox 360 on 23 October 2012. It is the fifth Forza game, spun off from the Turn 10 Studios Forza Motorsport titles. It is set during the fictional Horizon Festival, a street racing event, and you progress by winning races while raising your popularity through stunts and activities. Unlike earlier Forza games it takes place in an open world you can explore.

The game is about casual street racing on temporarily closed public roads, on a map based on Colorado, with circuit races, off-road rally and point-to-point races. Roads carry AI traffic and, online, other drivers, and you can challenge racers you meet to a one-on-one race to a randomly picked waypoint. A skill system rewards drifting, jumping and two-wheel driving, which chain into combos that raise your pay. Higher popularity unlocks showcase events such as races against helicopters and planes. There are speed traps, a photography mode, barn finds of rare classic cars, an auto show, a garage and a paint shop.

Playground Games was formed by people from studios behind Project Gotham Racing, Driver, Colin McRae: Dirt, Race Driver: Grid and Burnout, and first pitched a revival of Project Gotham Racing. The team researched almost 30 real places, chose Colorado, and took over 50,000 reference photos. Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt said the game was designed around real music festivals such as Coachella.

The soundtrack has several dubstep tracks and three fictional radio stations: Horizon Bass Arena for electronic music, Horizon Pulse for indie, and Horizon Rocks. Rob da Bank, founder of Bestival, curated songs and advised on the festival design. A season pass covered the first six car packs of six cars each, five exclusive cars and the Rally Expansion, due 18 December 2012. The free 1000 Club pack arrived on 16 April 2013 with new medals and achievements and two free cars, the Ruf CTR2 and the Ford F100.

It was delisted from the Xbox 360 Marketplace on 20 October 2016 after its car licences expired, and relisted for a few hours on 30 April 2022. It received an Xbox One X update in March 2018. On 22 August 2023 its online servers closed, along with those of Forza Horizon 2, though friends can still play together using Xbox Live peer to peer.

Reviews were favourable, with a Metacritic score of 85. Famitsu gave it 36 out of 40. Most scores were 80 percent or higher, from two perfect scores at Giant Bomb and Eurogamer Sweden down to 60 percent at Polygon, which found the open world empty and the paid DLC plan aggressive. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences nominated it for Racing Game of the Year at the 16th awards. It started its own series, with Forza Horizon 2 in 2014 and later games following.

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Racing

Developer

Playground Games

Publisher

Microsoft Studios

Series

Forza

Designers

Ralph Fulton, Martin Connor

Writers

Christian Cantamessa

Producers

Adam Askew, James Dobrowski

Directors

Gavin Raeburn

Modes

Single player

Yes

Online multiplayer

Yes

Release dates

Editions

Buy this game

Subscription history

Achievements

Achievements70 (1,500G)

Total

70

Gamerscore

1500

• Welcome to Horizon You arrived at Horizon Festival raring to go. 10G 99.2% of players
• Take Her for a Spin! You bought a car from the Autoshow. Now take her for a spin! 15G 91.99% of players
• ...and across the line! You competed in your first race at Horizon. 10G 97.45% of players
• First! You won your first race at Horizon. 20G 96.38% of players
• Born Slippy You've won your first Mixed-Surface or Dirt Race. 10G 86.49% of players
• WARNING!!! DANGER TO MANIFOLD You've won 10 Street Races. Ali would be proud. 15G 45.84% of players
• #WINNING! You've dominated 10 Festival Races. 15G 61.31% of players
• Close Encounters You've challenged and beaten 10 festival racers on the spot. 20G 31.15% of players
• Lawbreaker You blasted past 5 speed traps and 5 speed zones. 10G 60.73% of players
• Vendetta You've beaten a Rival time in 10 events. 20G 14.66% of players
• Been There, Done That! You've fully explored the Horizon Festival Loop. 10G 58.45% of players
• Rave Paint You created a paintjob and your ride is looking SWEET! 10G 69.63% of players
• Wheelin' 'n Dealin' You sold something via your Storefront. KERCHING! 10G Needs online 12.68% of players
• May The Forza Be With You You received free cars for being a loyal Forza fan! 10G 33.48% of players
• One to Watch You're the 200th most popular driver at Horizon. 10G 69.33% of players
• The Next Big Thing You're the 100th most popular driver at Horizon. 15G 49% of players
• Almost Famous You're the 50th most popular driver at Horizon. 20G 39.59% of players
• Killer Skills You're the 10th most popular driver at Horizon. 25G 33.18% of players
• Notorious You're the most popular driver at Horizon. 30G 32.24% of players
• A Wristed Development You received your Yellow Wristband. 20G 92.11% of players
• Going Green You received your Green Wristband. 25G 80.13% of players
• Out of the Blue You received your Blue Wristband. 30G 65.77% of players
• Racing for Pinks You received your Pink Wristband. 35G 57.37% of players
• Freshly Squeezed You received your Orange Wristband. 40G 50.46% of players
• Purple Reign You received your Purple Wristband. 45G 44.35% of players
• Golden Boy You received the Golden Wristband. 50G 40.32% of players
• Darius Who? You owned Darius Flynt and became the Horizon Festival champion. 100G 36.23% of players
• Hard Driving You finished in first place on HARD? Nice. 10G 30.19% of players
• Gettin' It Done You rocked every single Festival Event. 30G 23.89% of players
• Win Diesel You cruised past the competition and won every Street Race. 30G 25.5% of players
• Exhibitionist You've won every Showcase Event in the game. 20G 25.27% of players
• Domination! You've sent every Horizon Star packin'. 10G 34.06% of players
• All Your Race Are Belong to Us You've won every single race in the game! 30G 19.23% of players
• Stuntman You've completed every Horizon Outpost PR Stunt. 25G 14.23% of players
• Kudos to You You've completed 5 Sponsorship challenges. 10G 84.74% of players
• Sellout 20 Sponsorship Challenges? Now you're popular and rich! 20G 72.98% of players
• Barn This Way You found your first barn find. 5G 67.78% of players
• Bargain Shopper You bagged yourself a nice discount. 10G 73.87% of players
• Black Friday Never pay for an upgrade again! 20G 18.23% of players
• Road Trip You've driven along every road in the entire game. 25G 29.4% of players
• Still a Noob... 10 online races complete... not bad! 10G Needs online 24.89% of players
• Noob No More 25 online races complete... awesome! 20G Needs online 17.04% of players
• Playground Games You completed each of the Playground game types. How fun was that? 5G Needs online 21.88% of players
• Swings and Roundabouts You've completed 3 of each Playground game types. 20G Needs online 16.45% of players
• Cruise Club You've completed 10 free roam challenges online. 20G Needs online 8.38% of players
• Ding! You got to Level 5 online. 5G Needs online 36.45% of players
• Just Me and the XP You've reached level 25 online. Did you win a car yet? 10G Needs online 15.75% of players
• OMG You won your first car online. 5G Needs online 41.5% of players
• ZOMG! You've won 3 cars online. 10G Needs online 33.32% of players
• OMGWT*BBQ!? You got seriously lucky and won 5 cars online. 20G Needs online 28.17% of players
• Now that's a Special Stage You completed your first Horizon Rally stage. 20G 12.02% of players
• Covered in Mud and Glory You won your very first Horizon Rally. 20G 8.74% of players
• Take her for a Power Slide You obtained your first Horizon Rally car. 20G 12.29% of players
• Horizon Rally Champion You became the Horizon Rally Champion. 75G 6.43% of players
• Harder Driving Won a Rally stage on Hard opponent difficulty without using automatic shifting or the Driving Line. 25G 3.72% of players
• Mile High Club You got a total of 1609 metres of air in Horizon Rally events. 10G 8.73% of players
• Rally Rivals You completed 5 Horizon Rally events in Rivals mode. 20G 3.92% of players
• Ghostbuster You won 10 Horizon Rally stages in online multiplayer. 25G Needs online 3.35% of players
• Flawless Victory You won a Horizon Rally stage without crashing or using rewind. 15G 6.33% of players
• High Five! You purchased all five Horizon Rally cars. 20G 7.19% of players
• My First Challenge You earned your first Medal. 10G 38.36% of players
• Ferrari Fan You earned a Medal in 14 different Ferraris. 20G 5.23% of players
• It's Just Money You earned a Medal in 14 different cars worth at least 1 million Cr. each. 20G 5.42% of players
• Snake Charmer You earned a Medal in 3 different Shelbys. 20G 4.5% of players
• Lamborghini Lover You earned a Medal for 8 different Lamborghinis! 20G 4.42% of players
• Nissan Ninja You earned Medals by racing, jumping, and drifting 7 different Nissans! 20G 4.63% of players
• Well Engineered You efficiently earned a Medal in 10 different BMWs. 20G 4.41% of players
• Sir Challenge-a-Lot Like a true gent, you earned a Medal in 20 different British cars! 20G 4.66% of players
• Ford Champion You earned a Medal in 13 different Fords. 20G 4.47% of players
• Forza Legend You proved you're a Forza Legend by earning a Medal in 146 cars! 80G 3.83% of players

DLC

Monthly car packs, a Season Pass, the Rally Expansion and the free 1000 Club pack. The game and all its DLC were delisted on 20 October 2016, so none of it can be bought now.

Items

Name	Date	Adds	Obtainable today	Price
Season Pass and car packs	2012-09-25	Six car packs of six cars each, five exclusive cars and the Rally Expansion.	no
Rally Expansion	2012-12-18	Horizon Rally events and five rally cars, with 10 achievements worth 250 gamerscore.	no
1000 Club	2013-04-16	Medals for each car, two free cars (Ruf CTR2 and Ford F100) and 10 achievements worth 250 gamerscore.	no	free

Playable today

Online

Online servers runningNo

The online servers closed on 22 August 2023, but friends can still play together over Xbox Live peer to peer. The game was delisted in 2016 and the Xbox 360 Store closed on 29 July 2024.

Services

Service	Status	Shutdown date
Online servers (Forza Horizon)	closed	2023-08-22

Reception

Aggregates

Outlet	Platform	Score	Scale
Metacritic	Xbox 360	85	100

Critics

Outlet	Score	Scale
IGN	9	10
GameSpot	8.5	10
Game Informer	8.5	10
Eurogamer	9	10
GameTrailers	9	10
Destructoid	9	10
Edge	8	10
Official Xbox Magazine	9	10
Polygon	6	10
Giant Bomb	5	5
Famitsu	36	40

Staff and cast

Staff

Role	Name
Director	Gavin Raeburn
Designer	Ralph Fulton
Designer	Martin Connor
Producer	Adam Askew
Producer	James Dobrowski
Programmer	Alan Roberts
Artist	Benjamin Penrose
Writer	Christian Cantamessa

Notes for collectors

• It is the only Forza game rated T by the ESRB and 12 by PEGI.
• The game and all DLC were delisted on 20 October 2016, relisted for a few hours on 30 April 2022, then delisted again.
• Microsoft released an Xbox One X update in March 2018 that runs it at 4K.
• The Xbox 360 list has 70 achievements worth 1,500 gamerscore: 50 in the base game and 10 each for the Rally Expansion and 1000 Club.
• Playground Games awards rare unicorn cars, such as the Ferrari Dino 246, to players for community involvement.
• Scott Tyler, the DJ of Horizon Bass Arena, has appeared in every Forza Horizon game since.

Credits

Region

US

Time to beat

about 17.5 hours