Forza Motorsport Fan Bemoans The 'Non Stop Criticism' From The Game's Reddit Community

The career mode is definitely a little stale but the gameplay (what matters most) is fantastic. I'd give it 9/10. Wouldn't be surprised if in a year's time it's a 10/10 must play.
I can see myself playing the featured championships for years to come, so as long its updated well with tracks and features I couldn't be happier.

I only managed to give it about 3 hours last night and am really enjoying it. At the moment for me its not the mind blowing next gen leap forward I was hoping for but it’s deffo got that “just one more race before bed” feel to it. A lot of the gripes I have seen online are about the grindy nature but I quite like that you have to use a car to unlock upgrades and then use the car xp points to buy them rather than in game currency which you can save up to buy decent cars instead. I had a quick look through the car shop and some of the more exotic ones don’t seem too far out of reach to save up for. Only time will tell if the payouts for some of the later races are decent.

My main gripe (and it’s a fairly small one) is the practice laps. I like it as a feature and have used it for my first race in a new car but other than that I just skip them. Please Turn10 just let me skip it from the start of race menu rather than having to start the practice lap and skip it from the pause menu. It’s close to a minute of wasted time with the cutscenes involved and more than anything just seems like a bit of a UX oversight. Feels a bit like they are desperately trying to force me into playing the game their way.

From what I could tell of Reddit last night though PC players are not enjoying the solid performance I am enjoying on XSX. If the game isn’t working properly for them they have every right to moan about it.

I've got no major problems with it.

In general, the biggest fans of games (and those who spend time on Reddit), are generally the one who talk about the negatives way too much.

I find it pretty surprising this game turned out the way it did when they had so much time. Why can't we even spectate others when we're done with practice/quali? I wanna see how others take a corner.
The game has so many UX issues as well. Who asked for forced/unskippable cutscenes man.
All of my nitpicks are things that are certain to be added in time but it's a tad annoying to not have it after so many years in development.
How's everyone doing with their safety rating?

The problem is partially with the expectation setting around visuals and performance.

The footage leading up to the release of the game was of a much higher quality visually then what was actually delivered. This almost always leads to bad press and I think developers need to learn to be more careful with this marketing tactic.

That and there seem to be some performance issues on PC in some cases.

It's not a bad game, and for the most part I'm enjoying it. Though I have to say that I do prefer Project Cars 2 over it, I found the career mode to be better, more tracks and I'm not a fan of the levelling up of the cars, it's almost like it punishes you for using a different model of car instead of stocking with a certain manufacturer. Other than that, it's enjoyable and I'll definitely be putting more time into it

I’ve only played an hour so far but it was really fun. Handling feels great, visuals look great, the career mode and car progression seem fun so far.

I’m enjoying it lol

@Kaloudz Yeh the Xbox players are enjoying it but what this article hasn’t included are the Reddit comments from pc players who are saying the performance issues make it unplayable. It’s easy to make it seem like people are just moaning for the sake of moaning by taking a few select quotes but a quick look at the Forza subreddit shows it’s filled with people who want to play the game but can’t.

Game felt good to me through my first 5-10 races. However, I have started to sour on it fast due to unexplainable mistakes that are all under nitpick category, but pile up.
Driving is a bit too arcade for my taste, dualsense has ruined me for any sim racer with a different controller (wheel is a separate category), HUD is useless when driving using top/bumper cam (speedometer is in corner where you can't see it at a glance, there is nothing marking middle of the car to help with estimating your car boundaries), I have all assists off but still feel I can make mistakes in corners (early acceleration on exit) and not pay the price, AI is not good...
I don't know, I hoped it was gonna be a killer game which it is not :/

It's honestly very frustrating for me because I was really looking forward to this one... and it looks and plays wonderfully! But the career mode progression system is terrible and makes it feel like such a grind... which is seemingly becoming a part of AAA gaming as developers look to maximize "player engagement" by extending play time artificially. The previous Forza career modes weren't perfect, but they were extremely enjoyable and could have done with a few tweaks.

Hopefully they can correct this with some post-launch updates, because when you are on the track, it's absolutely fantastic. They got the hard part correct and completely botched the easy part! I'm not even that worried about the comparatively low track count, because we know they will keep dropping more.

And yet another reason why I decided to switch to console gaming - there is a reasonable expectation that the game I buy is going to work properly.

PC gaming became too much of a game in itself getting the Settings Menu right.

Ever since the ABK deal and Starfield, the online discourse/hatred towards all things xbox has gotten worse and worse.

There's a weird subset of gamers who are outraged that xbox finally has some games

Any fan community of any game is full of this kind of discourse these days (as a MK fan, it's going on with the MK subreddit over MK1). For some reason, even the biggest fans just want to complain.

That said, Forza isn't perfect and has its flaws — but fans aren't discussing that with nuance. In today's binary world, everything has to be a perfect "10" or a awful "1" — there's no middle ground anymore.

@Cikajovazmaj sums up exactly how I feel. Dualsense and the feel you get in GT is just miles ahead. I do enjoy the sense of speed you get but just feels like I'm driving on ice most of the time. Gave up and uninstalled and will stick to GT I think for my serious racing, and FH5 for when I want to chill

It's not just this game. I thought by now, developers would be really pushing this new hardware to new levels and these triple A games would be absolutely blowing us away.

Instead, we are watching YouTube videos comparing this with Motorsport 7 and having to have the slight differences in graphics pointed out to us.

It's a good game, and the 8 out of 10 score given by this website is probably about right.

The reddit community … enough said , point has been made.
Reddit , the place where people come to ask if they can drink bleach , where they come to ask if they need to go to a doctor or just put a bandage on if two fingers are just hanging loose on a piece of skin. Where people are telling stories so crazy that you’d ask yourself how on earth they survived all those years and still live.
But hey … let’s take them serious. Not to be disrespectful, but there is a mighty amount of garbage on that platform.
It’s like : hey .. I can finish this game easily .. give it a 10/10. Tomorrow in the same game they see 2 pixels wrongly colored : Terrible game ! Waste of time and money 1/10.

I like the game , very much. It feels like a different kind of Motorsport but also feels familiar.
I do have to say that VR racing ( GT7 on PS5 ) did kill the normal flat screen racing a little bit. Racing in VR is sooooo immersive. I would love to see this game run in VR.

It's PC performance is pretty dreadful and very odd considering how well the Forza Horizon games run on PC, just changing a framerate setting caused it to lurch between 40 and 80fps almost corner to corner.

As for the game itself, I found the intro to be hugely annoying as the game constantly talked at me instead of letting me play it. That and the structure of the single player just isn't very good and I suspect the car levelling up system is the cause of cars feeling like driving on ice, at least to start with.

On a more positive note, an upgraded car felt quite fun to drive and the AI felt more alive than in something like GT and the game looks great, so if they can fix that PC performance it could be in a good place

Most of the comments in the reviews section (for Xbox) on my regional marketplace are laughable. In what world is this a one star game? If you prefer a previous version, just go and play that. But this is a comment you hear for EVERY new release in the series, it's getting a bit old and is one of the worst reason for giving a low score.

"The tires sound stupid" - one star
"Game looks really bad, go play Gran Turismo instead" - one star
"This one track is missing" - one star
"If you stop during a race and look at the graphics, everything looks really bad" - one star
"After three races, I'm bored out of my mind" - one star

It's great, especially multiplayer.

The PC version should not be put in with the Xbox version in articles, one is a console the other a PC, The complaints on most games on release are almost always for the PC version.

I seriously do get a feeling, that Xbox exclusives are getting more and more unnecessary heat. I guess largely to do with PlayStation people, and people that expect to much or just quickly upset when they wont win anything.

This is gonna be for every Xbox game in the future. Communities that are toxic because they wanna just be toxic towards a platform.

Don't go into a subreddit for a game expecting to find fans of said game, you'll be horribly disappointed. You'll actually tend to get downvoted and called a shill for saying anything positive. It's awful.

Not really Into racing games ....even gran turismo 7 in vr couldn't keep my interest for very long atall...only played Forza for half an hour yesterday....but the driving felt instantly better than gran turismo to me...felt a more realistic weight to it

After like 4 hours with it I think it seems like a good game. Unfortunately, I'm not really into hardcore sim racers so I'm already wondering how much longer I will justify it taking up that much storage space.

The new Forza Motorsport is great so far after several hours of racing on my Series X. I've played every single Forza extensively and most Gran Turismo games along with countless other arcade and sim racing games and I must say I'm very impressed.

The most immediately noticeable upgrade is in the level of the simulation. The handling feels like a major upgrade over previous entries (which I've played a fair bit recently, so I'm not speaking from memory). It feels that the tires have real contact with the road and behave just as you'd expect. I've owned (or at least driven) many of the early cars available in the career mode irl and their Forza counterparts feel very close to the real thing.

I love having practice sessions before races and being able to set your own challenge in each race. The bumper to bumper racing is a notable improvement as well and I rather like the new penalty system as it encourages clean racing. The AI drivers are no longer suicidally sticking to their racing lines though I'll reserve judgement on their behavior until I've played more.

Visually FM is excellent, the tracks are way ahead of the bland environments in GT7 and obviously a big improvement over FM7 as well. The cars look great though the reflections can be a little odd in certain situations. The only disappointment is racing in the rain. It looks pretty basic and for whatever reason you can't use your wipers lol.

I don't even mind the progression system as I get what they're trying to do now that I'm playing it. As a championship progresses all cars get gradual upgrades, so it's down to how exactly you want to apply them to your specific car to stay competitive. It's a decent idea and works quite well in the several championships I've done so far. Also, it's awesome that upgrades now change the way a car sounds. Got a new exhaust? You'll hear it. Got a transmission upgrade? Get ready for some straight cut gear whine.

All in all this is the first game in the series since Forza 4 that has genuinely impressed me and I'm enjoying it immensely.

This game is a complete disaster IMO, the car leveling and upgrading system is a total mess and ruins the entire experience for me.

They can try to fight the criticism all they like, but don't be surprised when the userbase falls off.

The state of making videos/wants of improved multiplayer structures, customisation of liveries (I'd want Sega GT style custom events and car building aka parts, make our own chassis/presets off existing cars, or just Apex/Racing Evoluzione style story or dealer or whatever extent the game offers I can only tell so much from footage/what gets said and more but that won't happen), a good singleplayer career mode, simulation physics, and more have been talked about for a few months now.

Whether online requirement aside, it's just what critics say, devs want to go with to appeal to an audience/push tech or make a platform/product and what different sides of players want is very varied for sure.

To me FM8/reboot was just that a reboot, it has a few interesting ideas, some that are cool (payout position) and some not sure how they are of tedious or not in practice (RPG elements/level system being I think very GT7 or worse locking out things and upgrades being very particular what you can use, when you use it and swapping cars) which as someone that never uses upgrades in Forza Motorsport games ever because the stock car is good enough or they autotune it for speed anyway I just go eh. It's annoying but if higher difficulty it totally makes sense to upgrade it but if not then well the system is a bit questionable, it's either good, passable or broken depending who you ask online. I only watched a few reviews to have a certain idea of different angles.

Car models/sounds aren't my area.

I've no interest in the game at all so it can pass me by but for those who were excited I do feel for them and what they wanted out of it, what is or isn't to be believed and so on.

I've got NFS Shift 1 to do the tier 3+ events of still. Starting Project Cars 1.

Checking out Evolution GT, Driving Emotion Type S, Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano and more to play so I'm good for now on the retro racing front.

Maybe Forza "fans" have finally woken up and realised they've played the same game 12 times now?

It is simple for games like Redfall, Starfield and Forza, maybe putting Redfall a side for a minute have had ages and ages in the cooking development pot and people expected TOTK and GOWR level of pure quality all round within the games systems from top to bottom and it didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong good games both of them but they should have been outstanding and top of the class in their respective fields.
Xbox should have produced at that level and they didn’t and we have waited a dam long time.

@Sakai - this. It’s bordering on fake outrage at this point. Not saying there aren’t issues, as ANY game has some, but it seems like Xbox games in particular have an unrealistic set of standards that must be met, whereas other games from 3rd party and competitors get much more of a pass.

Unfortunately there are so many people that call any one that says stuff that’s annoying or they don’t like “outraged” - Forza MS was my hope for the Game of the Generation so far….. on the track it’s solid. F MS 7 was 10 out of 10 on track so it’s no surprise.

So many other decisions hold the game back. The forced practise stuff. The bizarre pick your own place on the grid for more rewards. The level each car up thing. It’s all a very grind heavy design.

I played it for a couple of hours and just didn’t feel engaged. I wondered if I was just not in the mood so I booted up Forza 7 and had a ball and way more fun straight away.

I’m a solo player only. I would imagine there is nothing to moan about on multiplayer (on Xbox) coz the game looks and plays great. It’s just some of the design/mode choices holding it back and for me not making me want to play it.

Gran Turismo had a terrible terrible solo player menu system thing. This is better but the grind is just too much and in several forms.

Often modern games think “grind” is the same as longevity but it’s really not. Fun is longevity.

I’m not “outraged”….. at all. I’ll dip in and out of it and hopefully they’ll tweak things. Just not the clear GOTY it should have been.

I'm enjoying the game and have been splitting my time between PC and SeriesX. My only grumble is that on the PC using AMD FSR 2.0 the game looked awful and the out of the box presets wern't to my liking, I can't remember the last time I had to spend so much time fiddling with a PC game to get the balance of Performance vs Prettyness correct.
On the SeriesX all of these problems go away

It seems the in thing to hate on Xbox at the moment. It's either Xbox has no games, or when they do they've either haven't developed them or they're trash. To be honest it is getting rather tiresome.

what a pancake and crocodiles tears times we life in , who cares to criticize something, play forza and have fun

@GeeEssEff The problem with PC players is that, according to the latest Steam hardware survey, 80% of them are running GPUs that are worse than a Series S, let alone a Series X. People are expecting to run a 2023 AAA game on a toaster and then wondering why it doesn't run very well. It's not always an optimization issue.

On my Pc the game runs at a fairly consistent 60fps, and at 4k. I used some optimised settings I found from Digital Foundry and that's another issue; people running the game at settings that their PC has no chance of being able to cope with.

@dreadful Umm, there's only been 8 Forza Motorsport games. Forza Horizon is nothing like Motorsport.

The 'victim mentality' of xbox stalwarts is pretty daft.
If Microsoft dont want harsh judgements then they shouldnt provide misleading pre release footage and promises, and shouldnt beat their chest so much about how fantastic and 'game changing' their titles are. In that situation, people will judge harshly if you just deliver a 'good' game insead of a genre defining one.
What reditt says is irrelevant - you can find any opinion you are looking for there. But few pople see the big titles we have been waiting for as genre leaders. For me, both Starfield and Motorsport are decent 8/10 titles, fun to play for a while but I wont remember them at the end of this gen like Ill remember trully great titles like Elden Ring, Zelda Tears, or Baldurs Gate 3.

I think if MS stopped telling us how 'exceptional these titles will be before underdelivering, they wouldnt get quite the level of critiscm they do.

Personally I run in performance mode on series X for best sharpness and clarity on a 65 inch screen. Ive had no issues on PC and run on Ultra everything at 4k, never had stutter or anything less than 60fps, but its a powerfull pc, no need to fiddle with settings.

@hawk26 "I do enjoy the sense of speed you get but just feels like I'm driving on ice most of the time... Gave up and uninstalled."

Mmm! I don't think that is an issue with the game, purely to do with the car you choose. Maybe you should spend some time tuning and tweaking to improve performance.

Imagine going to reddit and expecting to see something other than "Xbox bad." It took them an entire year to clean up the series x subreddit and even still it's loaded with concern trolls.

Just wish I could access the store and buy the car packs and VIP stuff.

I’m a casual player and these packs help keep me engaged over the year or so I’ll be playing this. Just frustrating. Game is gorgeous and I’d say the physics and graphics, to me, edge out GT7 a hair, but only a hair.

I like the HUD on GT7 better but I’ll live.

The forced cutscenes including at the intro to the game are timewasters

@Stocksy It's not that grindy — the game lets you keep all XP even if you quit out of a race or practice this time around. You can skip out of practice, too. I haven't even completed the second series and the car I started with is at level 50. The PI level is at the max so I can't upgrade any further, anyway.

I'm playing on difficulty 6/8 with no assists and expert rules. The rewards rack up faster. If you want to jump around to different cars, well, it is not like you NEED the upgrades right away. The car level should be pretty high after an hour or two of racing.

@theduckofdeath the more you play it you get used to it. But it’s not a “good feature” - can you turn off the level up alerts in race? I’d rather just know at the end?

Like most games these days you might be able to skip the grind stuff like the practise but it was a silly design choice. It’s like in Horizon 5 you can ignore the live stuff and Forzathon things but so much cool stuff is tied into it. I’m just not a fan of all that. Horizon 3 and MS 7 both got Forzathon right. They were fun and achievable

@Stocksy I'm not sure if you can turn off the level up notification. I'll check a little later. They are trying to further "gamify" the game to give an added sense of accomplishment.

After playing all the Forza's, it is tough to remember and compare all the features. FM7 had XP boosts that I did not use at first, and later realized I should have used them.

The practice isn't a big deal to me because I don't know or recall most of the tracks (except for Laguna Seca from decades of GT and later Forza). A few laps help me to familiarize myself with the turns and the car.