Well, Forza Horizon's British racing festival is about to close its doors - with Xbox announcing that Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted from digital storefronts later this year. Of course, the game will remain playable for existing owners after this date, but it's being removed from Xbox Game Pass - and the game's live service elements will wind down this year too. While Forza Horizon 5 is here now and continues to get updates, we still miss the days when FH4 was king of the roost, and we'll be sad when its digital disappearance goes down in December.
You might be thinking to yourself, just play Horizon 5, it's great? Well, that might be true, but for me personally, Horizon 4 remains the best game in the Forza Horizon series - with a fantastic map, game-changing weather conditions and the best racing roads in the franchise. Yep, I said it.
Now, there may be some bias to that, I admit. Not only am I from the UK and really dug cruising around some of the area's underappreciated locations, but also, this game marked my real start in the industry. Just as the world was locking down due to COVID-19, I was working with the team at Eurogamer on getting my first-ever feature published over there. It was certainly a great time to reconnect with some of my childhood holiday destinations in the digital world of Forza Horizon 4!
It's not all rose-tinted nostalgia, though. I still regularly play this game across both Xbox and my Steam Deck, and it's just pound-for-pound the best entry in the series for me. You've got amazingly varied racing routes across the main map, Fortune Island and the LEGO expansion, you've got those cool-as-heck weather effects I previously mentioned, you've got just enough endgame content and live service goodies to keep you hooked - but not too many that it becomes a bit overwhelming (ahem, Forza Horizon 5). Horizon 4 just got the balance right I reckon, and given that it came from Xbox's day one on Game Pass era, I was hoping it'd stick around alongside FH5 for some time to come.
Alas, that isn't to be, and fans will have to make sure that they go ahead and grab a copy in some form before it's removed from the Xbox Store. It sounds like anyone who owns any FH4 DLC will be getting some sort of token to redeem over the coming days, so be sure to keep checking your Xbox messages for that, especially if you still enjoy this game as much as I do. Also, various versions of the game are on sale right now on Steam, with an Xbox sale to come in July, so there's no need to rush and fork out full price for it!
Personally, I already have a physical copy of the game, so I'll be sorted out well beyond this digital delisting - I just felt the need to rant and rave about Horizon 4 and why I love it so much in the meantime. Anyway, I'll be off now to continue enjoying the best Forza Horizon game to date, and maybe, just maybe, the best driving game on Xbox.