Forza Horizon Thoughts
I work for a gaming products brand, so lately I've been installing Forza Horizon 6 on our laptops for demonstration use. In the downtime, I've spent a few minutes playing the game and I'm hooked with just driving around the map (set in Japan) and customizing the decals on the cars.
Due to the itch to keep driving cars, I installed my copy of Forza Horizon 4 on my Steam Deck, and I was surprised with how smoothly it ran at 45fps. The small screen showed enough details that I didn't notice anything lacking. That is to say, props to the developers for their effort in optimizing the game because, honestly, I didn't expect it to run this great on a handheld device.
Now, I can drive my Nissan R34 anywhere.
The smoothness of the game also made me realize how similar the graphics of Forza Horizon 4 and 6 were. I mean, there must be a limit at some point to the realism of cars, right? Upon googling, they are also built on the same proprietary engine. The newer game uses an upgraded version to "make driving more realistic". Now, as someone who doesn't have a driving license, Forza Horizon 4 was already incredibly realistic to me. As long as they keep the same art direction for the future games, I think we've already seen the best graphics in this franchise.
Also, I'm imagining a future where they make a "Forza Horizon World" where all the game maps are connected via a tunnel seamlessly(no need to be geographically realistic here). That would be incredibly amazing (and most likely take up around 1.5TB of storage).
Now imagine, instead of cars, we're driving across these countries in huge, customizable cargo trucks. We go from warehouse to warehouse, following traffic rules, carrying cargo and being paid for it. Then we manage our own warehouse and build a fleet of these trucks who will earn passive income for our company.
Oops, I think I just reinvented Euro Truck Simulator.
It would be a damn good game, though. There should be a way for ALL maps in ALL driving games to seamlessly blend together.
-jgzn