Forza Horizon 2 preview: wherever the road takes you

The Horizon Festival is ready to kick off once again after a two-year hiatus, as Playground Games returns with Forza Horizon 2. While Forza Motorsport 5 dazzled early Xbox One adopters with pristine cars, real-world race courses, and the thrill of competition, Forza Horizon 2 will once again go in a slightly different direction, opting for an open world experience.

This time around, the Horizon Festival hits the plains of Europe. Kicking off with a mix of live-action cinematics and a three radio station soundtrack, Forza Horizon 2 kicks off with a race to the festival itself. But much like the first game in this series, the remainder of the game won't be quite so structured.

If Forza Motorsport is all about crisp textures and high performance, Forza Horizon 2 retains a fair chunk of it, while mostly focusing on the fun of a wide open playing field. Players are welcome to drive around the entire landscape, with few areas closed off. Off-road driving is hardly a problem, regardless of the car, and is often encouraged to get to the next point quickly. Several racing circuits will open up for part of the main progression segments and each individual race in the circuit can be taken in any order. The fun, however, lies in just driving around and bumping into random people across the land. XP can be earned by utilizing various driving skills (drifting, near-misses, cornering, jumping, etc.) and chaining them together for big combos. Finding a big wide open space and going nuts with your car is, by far, the most entertaining aspect of Forza Horizon 2.

It's hard to comment on Horizon's world as a whole, because to be honest, in the 30-45 minutes that I spent with the game, I opened the menu to find that I had only explored a whopping one percent of it. Indeed, Playground is estimating that it will take roughly 100 hours of gameplay to see all of Forza Horizon's world, which will expand well beyond the European landscape. The world will expand by completing racing circuits and earning more XP. Part of the way players can earn XP is through 'Bucket List Challenges,' which will appear in various places throughout the open world. Each car will come tied to its own unique challenge, such as speeding through a forest area and getting to the festival area within a time limit.

The other major aspect of Forza Horizon 2 is the vast number of drivable cars, going beyond Forza's usual line of sports cars. There are 210 vehicles avialable in the game, which can be purchased for credits that are earned throughout the game or through a level-up bonus. Leveling up will bring up a slot machine-style mini-game that will reward either big credit bonuses or random car unlocks. It's certainly appears to be a refreshing change from the unlock system from Forza 5 last year, though the unlock prices were not revealed during this hands-on.

Then there's the dynamic weather and day-night cycle, which I had only scratched the surface of during my time with the game. While rain did fall during a few of my races, it was hardly noticeable in a visual sense (unless I was set to cockpit view) and it didn't seem to affect my driving too much. My first impression was that it seemed inconsequential, though that's likely because I didn't see too much of it to notice. What I did notice was Horizon's new dynamic lighting system, referred to as 'forward-plus rendering,' which helped illuminate the environments in tandem with the day-night cycle.

Playground is aiming for a social experience with Forza Horizon 2. It fully utilizes the sophisticated 'Drivatar' system used in last year's Forza Motorsport 5, putting players in open worlds with other drivers based on their friends' playing styles. Since the Drivatars will also inhabit the open world, it'll make encountering traffic more interesting. Those looking to race with their real-world friends can connect seamlessly from single-player to online play without the use of lobbies, complete with the ability to jump directly into a friend's session without delay. Friends can also band together to join Car Clubs, which can hold up to 1,000 people.

The garage is starting to fill up with racing games for the fall season, but Forza Horizon 2 seems to do a good job standing out among the pack. The game will hit Xbox One and Xbox 360 on September 30.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?