I was pretty excited to see Forza Horizon return late last year, with an outing to the wide open world of Mexico. On paper, it seemed like a great locale for the series to move to after a more familiar entry set in Great Britain, with Forza Horizon 4. Well, after nine months of play and a rehashed expansion, I think I'm ready to move on from Forza Horizon for a wee bit.
Hear me out, Forza Horizon 5 is a great game. Its location is indeed more varied than the last title, and most of its systems only expand on the groundwork laid by Playground Games with FH4. Yet, it's the first time since the series debuted in 2012 where things feel a little off. Whether that's driven by development affected by the pandemic or just general burnout, FH5 feels like it's spinning its wheels a bit. There's nothing that feels truly new in Horizon 5, and I feel that just like Forza Motorsport, it's time for an extended break.
However, rather than the series return with a fresh take in 4 or 5 years, I'd rather Playground give Project Gotham Racing another run. The developer already pitched some sort of reboot before Forza Horizon was born, so there's interest there from the team, or at least, there was 10-or-so years ago. With so-called 'open world fatigue' developing in certain gaming circles since, I reckon there's even more reason to revisit the series in 2022.
Oh, and the fact that PGR is the best racer Xbox has ever had. Yeah, I said it.
Project Gotham's unique blend of tight city tracks, incredibly responsive controls, and a believable-but-arcadey handling model still holds up to this day. Belting it round London, Vegas, Tokyo, New York, you name it, in a terrible little hatchback never felt so good, and I'd argue that nothing since has really hit those same heights.
Every vehicle type felt incredibly fun to drive - something that semi-realistic racers often struggle with. It's easy for a game like Burnout, or something akin to cult classic Split/Second, to slam everything into 8th gear and go all guns blazing regardless of car class, but PGR nailed something different. It straddled the line perfectly between a console sim and a pure arcade racer, and while Forza Horizon is the closest anyone's got since, that series still veers slightly into 'console sim' territory in comparison. Simply put, PGR is the most fun 'simcade' racer ever made.
PGR's early dabbling with online multiplayer was also surprisingly contemporary. The 'Bulldog' mode thrown into PGR4's online suite was an absolute masterclass in thrilling online driving, and again, I don't think I've had as much fun in an online racing game since. The cat-and-mouse gameplay worked so well amongst PGR's city courses; they almost felt tailor made for the mode. Standard online races were also great fun, and while Forza Horizon has leaned into all-online in a lot of aspects, I'll be honest, I ignore most of it while cruising around the open world. PGR would probably need to build on certain online elements in the modern gaming world, but honestly, I don't think that much would need to change.
Forza's most recent DLC, Hot Wheels, is what brought all these thoughts to a head for me. I haven't been motivated enough to play it yet, and that's a huge problem. I've always been so eager to play anything Playground hits us with, yet I feel no real enthusiasm for Hot Wheels 2.0. Our own review of the DLC perfectly encapsulates why I've put off playing it thus far; it's another solid chunk of open world racing — much like the base game — but nothing overtly new for players to jump into.
Truth be told, I reckon there's room on the market for both of these racing series' to exist, it just doesn't look like Microsoft has the resources, or the desire, to make that happen. I've loved Forza Horizon ever since it blasted onto the scene in 2012, but, for the first time in 10 years, I think it's the right moment for Project Gotham Racing to retake the racing throne on Xbox.
Is PGR better than Forza Horizon? Am I insane? Please, let me know in the comments!
Comments 58
Loved project Gotham it really hit the sweet spot between arcade & simulation I liked the kudos points & the cops & robbers online mode too
PGR is great and I’d love to see it come back, but I feel like your understating how great FH5 is. That’s certainly an opinion you’re entitled to, but it’s a fantastic looking and playing game. Both should be able to exist.
Am really not keen on open world racers. Was a point when a whole load of us would get together for pgr Sundays. So would gladly welcome it back. Was even fun when the bikes appeared.
Absolutely love FH5, its the #1 reason I have an xbox now and the Hot wheels expansion was def a breath of fresh air, that being said I can understand what you're saying. I hope they go nuts with the next expansion and PGR comes back too, have heard nothing but great things about it!
Been a big fan of PGR since playing Metropolis Street Racing on the Dreamcast. I would love to see it return, of course but I don't think it will happen.
Missing the pure fun of PGR myself. I still fondly remember its first incarnation as Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast.
I really miss this franchise, and still play all four on my Xbox 360 since PGR 1 & 2 are backwards compatible for it and wish they'd be playable on Series X with auto HDR and FPS boost, but probably music licensing stop that from happening.
I’m with ya. FH3 was the pinnacle for me. I skipped 4, 5 is awesome on the series X but even so it’s more of the same.
I play so little it’s the next season every time I boot up. I feel lost but just kinda cruise around and races aren’t fun anymore.
I miss PGR, I think 2 was the best but 3 really nailed it! PGR 4 I did t like the bikes. That’s it.
A big fan of PGR here too. I do feel that FH has taken everything good about that series and improved it however. I feel that FH is like PGR in all but name sometimes. Kudos-Skill Points are the same. Racing through Cities with arcade handling and radio stations. The only difference is the variety you get in one game but then the detail in each FH is greater than any PGR game.
They could just call the next FH game PGR 5 and it wouldn't be that different.
@TheGrizMan totally agree I love PGR and both Forza incarnations. I’d be overjoyed if the former returned or they made it as “Forza Gotham” but Horizon is superb and there’s more than enough room for all 3 within Xbox without chipping at the others.
Couldnt agree more.. PGR is such a great racer game, such fond memories.
FH5 the only true totally packaged real AAA game released, since the series consoles have been released by an Xbox studio. Thank you Playground games.
But I do get some of your points.
@Dezzy70 AAA doesn't refer to the quality of a game it basically means the budget the game was developed with was big , halo infinite is rumoured to of cost around $500,000,000 on development alone so although the games not very good (in my opinion) it's literally the definition of a AAA game
I would love a PGR 5 with new and classic tracks and that distinct PGR style, Cool and Fast.
Microsoft really needs to out source it's dormant IPs as a live service PGR on Games Pass would be awesome. They could add all four games previous locations & an evolving car list say on day 1 & then add more.
@Would_you_kindly
I have a different opinion but that’s cool.
AAA to me is the quality of the game in all aspects and the quality in all aspects to the gamer.
It’s should be the best it can be for the hardware it is on both visually, sound and game play wise and at the top of its game all round.
While FH5 is a good game (and Hot Wheels is a good expansion), I agree that something felt off about FH5 but I'd say the same about FH4. I think it's down to the live service push, both FH4 and FH5's focus is the Festival Playlist (i.e. complete tasks every week to unlock new collectibles) meanwhile FH3 was centralized around the story campaign.
That live service push is the way a lot of Microsoft's games have turned towards like people don't even play the objective in Halo Infinite because they have challenges to unlock which involves killing with a specific weapon.
PGR just never clicked for me, I never got anything out of the games I couldn't get elsewhere.
I'd be happy for them to hand the IP to a new studio to make along side Forza/Forza Horizon, but the idea of replacing either Forza with PGR doesn't make me happy.
@Grumblevolcano That sounds so much like what Achievements/Trophies are for. I never understood the thrill of "do this specific thing" rather than playing the objective. But it seems there are throngs of dedicated players that live for that. I'll never understand it. It sounds dreadful.
@Grumblevolcano Yeah I feel exactly the same - fh5/4 are prettier than the previous Forza horizons…but haven’t been as engaging for me mostly because of the extra live service push that clutters the menus, effect the sense of progression. The constant wheel spins Interrupting gameplay…the constant credits being thrown around like I’m some gambling crackhead.
The poorly written forced in story and radio stations…forcing in uninspired quests to open new sites for festivals whilst radio stations overact enthusiasm about how amazing this mystery driver is…as you ruin someone’s fence.
I also don’t particularly enjoy online now…where once you get to a race you really need to have upgraded and tuned every class of car to have a chance of a fair game. Everything else in the game is dumbed down for ‘accessibility’…and then you join an online race and you realise you should have actually been making use of customising your car…even though the game spends so much of its time throwing cars at you, teaching you you never need to look at tunings etc.
Fh 1/2/3 I spent ages in tuning. It was a big part of the game for me. FH4/5 not so much.
FH feels like it should be a mobile game at times. And for all it’s good looks, it’s hard not to see that the animation and character designs are pretty damn basic… which, tbh, doesn’t have me as enthused as others that playground games are working on a fable…not when you add poor writing and lack of experience (in 3rd person rpgs)into the mix.
It’s so annoying that PGR 3/4 aren’t backwards compatible with the series consoles… amazing games. Racing games must be a minefield when it comes to licensing… I’d love to be able to play Blur again too. But wouldn’t licensing only be an issue if they sold the games again on the store? Is licensing really an issue if they just gave us the ability to play the discs we already own?
Love PGR. First game that I remember letting me import mp3's for my own racing soundtrack. So many great memories.
I’d love to see a new PGR, absolutely. Loved he first two games (and their predecessor, MSR on Dreamcast). Don’t agree on FH5 though, doesn’t feel off to me at all. I love it.
FH5 is the first game in the series to get me proper hooked. I did have a lull for a few months because so many good games have been coming out but I’m back and playing everyday. I don’t know what they did to make it more addictive but it works on me anyway.
Maybe if I smashed it hard at the start I’d be burnt out now but that’s the same for any game.
Yep, I've been saying it for ages... we need a city street racer that sits between the handling models of FHorizon and FMotorsport... PGR would be it.
Though I reckon Xbox might want to stick with Forza branding, so I think Forza Metro would suit nicely 👍
I’d love to see Microsoft go back to PGR and would love to see them make all three games backward compatible when/if the Activision deal goes through, seeing as they currently own the rights to the IP.
I’ve honestly had enough of Forza Horizon, I’m more looking forward to the new Motorsport and now would like to see a different take on an arcade racer to replace Horizon.
PGR and it's Dreamcast processor Metropolis Street racer were brilliant games. Would love to see a new one.
Would love to see PGR return. 3 and 4 were some of the defining games of the early 360 days.
BLUR. Give us BLUR. Realistic cars, weapons and ...wait for it... 4-player split screen. This game was waaaay ahead of its time and is still great. Not good, great.
@redd214 it’s the main thing I play …. And Forza 7. I am not very good, but just tooling around takes my mind off of things…
PGR 3 on Xbox 360 was superb. The drifting around London streets - sublime. A great semi arcade racer.
I feel the same way about everything Forza Horizon after 2. Since two they have all been missing some kind of magic that the first one had. I really liked PGR and would love to see it come back. If only to have something that might feel fresh again. And as far as the recent Hot Wheels expansion, its maybe the most boring bit of racing game I’ve ever played. Id rather replay Horizon 1 through again for third time than boot it up again.
@Bleachedsmiles A lot of those complaints could be applied to all the Horizon games. The "stories," if you can even call them that, have always been barebone. The over enthusiastic DJs have always been there. Not sure why you're complaining about the character models (which you almost never see) when the main focus are the cars and environments, which are always highly detailed and top notch. Why should they pour time into something that barely has focus? Weird for you to lose faith on the new Fable based off the character models of a racing game.
Oh yes, PGR & RalliSport Challenge are my fave Xbox race games (own them all). Or a sequel to Blur & even Rumble Racing (PS2) was a good arcade racer.
Who fancies populating a PGR4 lobby to play some online racing? (just me? 😔)
@TheGrizMan Oh, agreed. FH5 taken in isolation is bloody brilliant, I just think the series is ready for a bit of a rest. And I miss PGR dearly...
Lots of sympathy for this point of view, especially pgr which needs a revival!
I enjoy FH5, but it did not hold my attention for very long and I believe they got all the progression very wrong for the title. I earnt nothing but had everything within a copule of days play.
Ive gone back for the dlc, which is fun enough, but I cant see me replaying it at all once ive completed it once.
In fact, I have a desire to return to FH4. Maybe not as pretty as 5, but I think its a better designed game experience and even though it has some of the options that spoil 5 for me, it seems to cope better, with a proper sense of progression still maintained.
BLUR.
The best alternative to Mario Kart ever. What a fantastic 4-player couch game.
@Lanmanna The story, animation, character models, writing for radio DJs, are all more prominent now than they were in 1/2/3…particularly the first two.
They’re all the weakest part of the game for me.
The environment is gorgeous. The cars are gorgeous. But playground games have very little to do with the cars. What is all them are the character models (which, like I said, are more prominent part of the game). And the animation that goes with them.
I never said I’ve lost faith in their ability to make a new fable because of character models alone. There’s plenty of an uphill battle for playground games - they have no experience in making a 3rd person western rpg. The character models, animations, writing, they have shown me they’re capable of so far…is just adding to already existing concerns on if they’re right for the job.
I get character models weren’t their focus in a racing game…but when it’s all I have to go off…put it this way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the world looks nice in fable but the character models looks ropey.
@Kezelpaso If you're serious about playing some PGR4 I'm up for it. However I need to buy a new powerpack for my 360. Maybe make a post in the forum, if we can drum up a few people I'll definitely play. Once I can actually boot up my 360!
@Shigurui I may have to do just that.
@Kezelpaso Powerpack ordered, be here next week. Get that post up!
Forza Motorsport is the best racer by far. The others are just arcade racing.
@Tc93 Arcade racing is the entire point of the article.
Totally agree with the article! There was something special about PGR games that was never captured by any other game.
@MaccaMUFC Activision owns the rights to pgr ?
PGR is not better. Forza Horizon is the evolution of PGR.
@Kezelpaso I've really come to enjoy your articles and takes on the racing genre, as a fellow genre enthusiast. Couldn't agree more with what you have said here. I absolutely love Forza Horizon 5, but there has been a lot of things about it that feel stale to me. Honestly, if I wasn't such a big fan of modifying and tuning cars, trying to build ideal and unique examples of everything, I would have gotten bored with the game a long time ago.
Like I have pretty much lost all interest in the racing and progression, even though I pretty much beat everything by now. Like the weekly challenges haven't really done it for me in FH5, only really bothering with them when there's an easy way to get a unicorn car. I didn't care for the story missions at all really, most of them were just something that felt like I needed to grind though. So to me it's literally just been building cars, and simply cruising around and enjoying them that keeps me coming back.
Now on the subject of what I am looking for in a racing game, where I am thinking of what kind of game have I not played in a long time that I really got a lot of enjoyment out of, Project Gotham Racing seems like the perfect series to revive. I mean as somebody who bought an Xbox 360 on launch day, PGR3 was probably one of the most memorable racing games I have ever played. The presentation was incredible to behold, and it managed to lean more into the arcade direction than Forza but still managed to have enough sim for the cars to feel distinctive in their own way, sorta like how the old NFS games used to feel. I would love to see what they could do with a new one.
@JayJ Appreciate the kind words! A few years ago I was clamouring for more open world racers (huge TDU fan) but yeah, in the time since, I've come to really appreciate a good linear arcade racer with solid progression. Forza Horizon started out fantastic, but it's become a bit 'Ubisoft', a bit of a 'distraction sim'. I wanna get back to the racing, yknow!
@Kezelpaso Yeah definitely. I feel like one of the biggest problems open world games seem to have is how developers feel a need to keep adding more fluff, flair, and things to attract the masses in the sense where they try to chase trends and so on, trying to please everyone. When the games are more focused, they tend to be more immersive. That and it can be a lot more fun to progress in a game that has a more linear approach.
I mean there's a good reason why I always like to have a good variety of racing games on my consoles. While I love having some serious track racing sims, and some open world driving games, it's always nice to have some more variety, and doing too much of the same thing all the time can make it grow stale and become somewhat of a chore, at least for me.
Heck I haven't even played the Hot Wheels Expansion for FH5 much either, mostly because I already played the Hot Wheels expansion in FH3, and it's just more high speed Forza Horizon racing. Another island location would have at least been interesting for me, as I would have somewhere else to cruise around with my creations, but in Hot Wheels it's just like they added some F-Zero style tracks to the game, and if I'm not in the mood for that there's no real draw for me.
@Would_you_kindly I’m sure I read somewhere awhile back that when Activision acquired Bizzare Creations (the devs behind PGR) that they in turn owned the rights to the series. But I’ve just quickly googled who currently owns the rights and it’s always been Microsoft. Which makes me think, why did they not make any of the games backward compatible? I imagine most likely because of licensing issues and MS didn’t continue the series due to focusing on Forza. This discovery makes me think a new PGR is a no brainer, now so many of us are looking to move on from Forza Horizon.
I've been saying this for a while now, it's nice to see the idea becoming more widespread and getting traction.
FM and FH franchise fatigue is real and has been a problem for some time, my thought was to bring back Project Gotham.... but now you're all getting onboard I'm gonna pivot..... bring back Blur instead!
(Alternatively slow down the fatigue by alternating between FM and PGR, and FH and Blur.
@Dezzy70 It's not an opinion, it's a definition. Yours is wrong and the other users is right.
@MetalGear_Yoshi
That is fine, I like being different.
But I will stick my opinion and forget the definition.
Project Gotham Racing never grabbed my attention. Played all of them a bunch on a buddy's Xbox back in the day, it was fine for it's time but I'm not clamouring for it to come back.
The original Forza Horizon came into existence as a direct result of Xbox's complete lack of interest in reviving PGR in the first place, so I'd say Xbox has moved on. The only slight glimmer of hope I can see is with the impending close of the Activision acquisition, with all those extra developers coming on board they could form a new studio to develop a PGR reboot.
But that's very much pie in the sky stuff. Unless a lot of people start asking for a PGR reboot, and when I say a lot I mean a lot more people than what we have on this website, then I can't see Xbox spending millions reviving a franchise that's been dormant for 15 years.
Test Drive Unlimited
@Jark It's already returning! https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/07/heres-your-first-look-at-hong-kong-island-in-test-drive-unlimited-solar-crown
@Kezelpaso yeaaaah boi! What a time to be alive, and set in Hong Kong. Excellent choice
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