Soapbox: Forza Horizon 5 Expansion 2 Should Take Notes From 'Fortune Island'

Except for the mountain pass, I actually thought Fortune Island was pretty dull. FH5 also already has a large variety of settings from tropical forests to mountains. Personally wouldn’t mind an extreme weather expansion like Blizzard Mountain.

@awp69 Blizzard Mountain, for me, was cool on paper but driving in those conditions just got annoying after a while. I prefer a down-to-earth DLC that I want to keep going back to, I haven't touched BM since launch.

Respectfully disagree and feel FH5 is easily the best in the series. I just couldn’t get into FH4, I’ve put tons of time in 5 and bought the DLC. As long as it is more of the same I’ll be happy with whatever the second DLC is.

@Kezelpaso I can understand that point of view. But other than the track from the top of the mountain, I honestly found Fortune Island dull and uninspired. But just my two cents and respect your opinion.

@themightyant It could be as simple as I just like the location better? Not really sure.

Forza Horizon 5 Expansion 2 Should Take Notes from 'Tresure Island'

Nah, - The Mexico setting in the main game clearly irritated you guys and, you made sure it was reflected in the review score...Because for some reason you had your expectations set for Japan🙄.

Now all Playground Games need to do is just make something set in Japan and it will be the best thing since ice cream was invented 😅.

@themightyant @FatalBubbles both 4 and 5 are good. Very similar. Personally I prefer 4 for a couple of reasons. In forza 4 it feels like a real place with houses and villages dotted around. 5 has the one town and the change from sand dunes to jungle to dirt area, feels unnatural and too gamified. The progression and gradual uncovering of the map is better in 4. In FH5 I did a race, some drifts and was straight into the goliath. Bizarre decision from the developers.

I suppose my positives could be someone else's negatives.

@Sol4ris Ubisoft FINALLY learned that for AC!

Street racing. We're already in Mexico, send us in for some highways, downtown hooning, and general mayhem in a model correct Mexico City.

In Mexico there is not much snow but friends tend to skip winter in FH4 over time so I don't know if people really want something like that. For me FH5 is far better than FH4 in terms of gameplay. Always get frustrated when returning to FH4 for some drifting and it's not registering my run because it can"t follow two zones in a row (same with speed zones + other stuff they didn't fix overall). Love both settings but variety in Mexico is better even if it feels more gamified though. Got + 900 hours in FH5 to my surprise but haven't missed a season yet. Spend more time in FH3 HW than in FH5 so I hope we will get something really thrilling as the next DLC! (no Lego please) I wish FH had a bigger soundtrack too.

• I wonder if they listened to feedback concerning the next DLC and/or there will be some new type of cars?

@NEStalgia

Ha-ha, well observed 😉. I just thought it was unfair for the PX reviewer to complain deduct/points based on his/her expectation of were FH5 should have been set. Perhaps they were looking forward to some Sekiro/Tenchu assassinations every couple of races...hence the, booo, I wanted a different country setting 😀.

I think it's kinda crazy how they finally added snow tires yet there is hardly anywhere to reliably find any snow or ice. Something like the Blizzard Mountain DLC would be nice, but I don't know where you could place that in Mexico.

@themightyant @themcnoisy Agree on most of this. FH5 is technically great and still a fantastic game but FH4's map just feels more cohesive. Also the roads in FH4 make for great racing routes, FH5's are a bit more generic open road vibe.

@themcnoisy What you are describing is what I liked, haha. I found the location and scenery a bit boring for 4, part of why I was turned off I think.

I love 5, but 4 is definitely the better game (also we got that incredible 007 car pack). It has been interesting seeing the general consensus start to recognize 4 as the better setting here and elsewhere on the internet, especially as time goes on and 5 feels even more sparse.

I'd be down for another Fortune Island, or better yet, something in the same spirit but not going back to the same well. The Hot Wheels DLC just wasn't as fun to me, but maybe it's because it was already done before.

I'm not sure if this is a case of "Brit's prefer UK location", or if it's "people who burned out on FH4 were bored by FH5." Technically and objectively 5 is just better. I didn't pour tons of hours into either but definitely found 5 much more enjoyable on a level of actual gameplay. I do agree about pacing, though, it unlocked everything all at once for no real reason and became a total sandbox instead of a progression, and do agree about the Uk map being more cohesive, but it was also cohesively homogenized while 5 did what 343 could not and created multiple biomes.

@Sol4ris Ok, now I want Ninja Racer, a normal racing game with stealth assassination missions between races. It would be a whole new twist to Carmageddon.

NFS is lacking an identity and EA is lacking a GTA competitor. Sounds like a perfect match.

Hey I'm back on pure! Last time I was here 70% of articles were FTC related, so I've not returned since. Glad to see people have realised there's better things to talk about.

I agree with this opinion piece and I love the fortune island DLC, some of the best designed tracks I've seen in the series were on that DLC. I bought the Hotwheels DLC, but other than gawping at the nice looking tracks I found it dull compared with the real game and for every hot wheels vehicle I had a better 'normal car'.
I'm lvl 212 in Forza 5 with just about everything done, so I've put the time in, but I find it a disappointing release and think FH4 is a much better version. I'm afraid I notice the vegetation pop in badly @60hz on FH5, so have to play it @30hz on series X. I've played much of it on PC @120hz 4K ultra instead.
I've recently taken the full tour and bought FH1 through to FH3 on disc for a few quid. They are all excellent and in many ways FH2 and FH3 have superior urban racing layouts to the later games.
Much as I don't feel FH5 is the greatest, my time with NFS recently shows that the design of these games is far superior to its peers, so a relatively 'weak' Forza still trashes all its peers.

The LEGO DLC had the most content and replay value. I still haven't collected all the LEGO pegs in FH4. The Hot Wheels content is great but it has very little replay value and completed in about a day. Fortune Island was great though. I just don't see them needing to do this in FH5. I'm hopeful for another LEGO DLC. Fortune Island like Hot Wheels was finished too quickly in my opinion.

At this point, I'd be happy with anything less dull than the 'just-go-straight-and-you-race-well-enough' Hot Wheels DLC.

But what really would be awesome? A hommage to the fantastic party racing game Blur, and thus Mario Kart, with real cars... and power-ups. Bring it on!