Forza Horizon 3 is a 2016 racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios for Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. The game features cross-platform play between the two platforms. The game was released on 23 September 2016 for Ultimate Edition players, and 27 September 2016 for standard and Deluxe Edition players. It is the third Forza Horizon and the ninth instalment in the Forza series. As with previous Horizon games, Turn 10 Studios assisted Playground Games in the game’s development. It is set in a fictional representation of Australia.
The game makes use of the Drivatar technology from previous Xbox One Forza games and features a four-player co-operative multiplayer campaign and cross-platform play, as it is a part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program. Additional content has been released in the form of updates, car packs, and two world expansions, which also include additional cars.
The game received universal acclaim from critics upon release. On review aggregator site Metacritic, the Xbox One version holds an average critic score of 91 out of 100, based on 91 reviews, making it and 2021’s Forza Horizon 5 the second highest-rated Forza Horizon titles to date, only behind 2018’s Forza Horizon 4. The Windows version holds a score of 86 out of 100, based on twelve reviews.
Gameplay
Forza Horizon 3 is a racing video game set in an open world environment based in a fictional representation of Australia.[2] The gameplay world is about twice the size of its predecessor, Forza Horizon 2,[3] and the game contains locales and regions based upon their real-life Australian counterparts.[4][5] While previous Horizon games have depicted the player as being one of the racers of the Horizon Festival, the player is now the director of the festival, and their role is to expand it throughout Australia by completing races, challenges, and stunts to earn fans.[3][6] By expanding the festival, the player can unlock new areas, challenges, events, and racing courses.[7]
Three types of racing modes are available in the game: Exhibition, Championship, and Rivals. Exhibition is a single race at one location, whereas Championship contains multiple races dispersed throughout the gameplay world. Rivals is a versus race against the player and an AI opponent, where the player has to compete in a time trial to beat the time set by the opponent.[8] Added in Forza Horizon 2, players can also participate in Bucket List Challenges. During Bucket List Challenges, the player is given a task to complete with a specific vehicle such as reaching a certain speed limit, for example.[9] The newly introduced Horizon Blueprint feature allows players to customise races and Bucket List Challenges.[3]
Apart from races and Bucket List Challenges, the player can engage in numerous other activities. Breakable boards called “bonus boards” can be discovered around the gameplay world; when driven over, they award the player with experience points or a discount on fast travelling.[9][10] As players progress through the game, they will receive notifications informing them of barn find rumours; when found, the in-game mechanic will restore the barn find for the player to use.[11] When performing driving stunts with a vehicle, the player is awarded “skill points”; if enough skill points are acquired, they can be used to purchase certain perks.[12]
Returning from previous Forza games, Horizon 3 features an implemented driving AI called Drivatars, which learns and mimics the driving abilities of Forza players.[13] Drivatars are found throughout the gameplay world,[14] and they appear in races as opponents, where they can be adjusted by game difficulty via the player.[9] Apart from standard races, Drivatars can be challenged to a head-to-head race. If the player wins the race, they will be able to recruit that Drivatar onto their racing team,[14] which allows the player to earn additional experience points, fans, and in-game currency.[6] The player can also recruit Drivatars in a car convoy. When in a car convoy, Drivatars will follow the player, and they can be upgraded by skill points to perform certain tasks throughout the game.[15]
The player can upgrade and tune individual parts of their vehicles, with body kits for vehicles being available to the player as well.[16][17] Additionally, Horizon 3 includes a vehicle cutsomisation option called “Upgrade Heroes,” which utilizes both tuning and body kits to alter both a vehicle’s performance and appearance, though the cutomisation preset is limited to a certain number of vehicles.[18] The colour of vehicles and its collective parts can changed, with the player further being able to design liveries for vehicles.[16] These liveries can be sold through the game’s transactional system, which also includes an auction system to bid on cars from other players.[3][19] A total of 350 vehicles were available at the game’s launch.[3]
Horizon 3 offers a co-operative campaign for up the four players and supports cross-platform compatibility.[15][20] The game also includes a multiplayer open world mode supporting up to 12 players.[16] In multiplayer, players can compete in standard races, though they also have the option to play various kinds of minigames with their vehicles.[6][15] As from previous Forza games, players can join clubs, where they have the ability to compete against players of other clubs in races and minigames.[15]
Development
Forza Horizon 3 was developed by UK-based Playground Games, the developers behind previous Horizon titles. Additional work was provided by Turn 10 Studios.[1] The game was designed using the ForzaTech game engine, which is used to develop most other Forza games.[21] The development team started conceptualizing about the creation of Horizon 3 in 2014 initially after Forza Horizon 2 was released.[22] The team desired to give players more freedom in Horizon 3, which wasn’t as prominent in the previous game of the series.[23] The team also aimed for Horizon 3 to be of better quality, therefore they sought to improve and reiterate many aspects of the game over the previous title.[22] This caused Playground Games to minimize the amount of loading screen time in Horizon 3, as it could damage the game’s impression of being persistently high quality.[24] Creative director Ralph Fulton felt that Horizon 3 was a “generational leap” over Horizon 2 because of the work the development team put in to better improve the game.
