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I shouldn’t be so excited by the words “dirt build up is more realistic”, but here I am, positively excited about the idea of my car turning into a dirty pup in Forza Motorsport during a race.
In Developer Direct from Xbox and Bethesda, Forza Motorsport creator Turn 10 delved into the finer details of the upcoming Xbox Series X racer. The team threw out big numbers like that at launch you have 500 cars to play with, there are over 800 upgrades you can fit into your vehicles and there are 20 environments to race through.
But what really stood out to me were the smaller things.
The Forza Motorsport sound director showed how, as you install those 800 upgrades on your vehicles, you create different sound profiles for your car, reflecting the parts you’ve fitted.
Another developer explained how much time the team spent accurately recreating dirt accumulation. So as you race around the track lap after lap, not only will your car pick up dirt, but the areas where the dirt accumulates and how it appears on your car will be affected by how you’ve been driving. Struggle to stay on the tarmac and ride the berm, and you’ll see more powdery dirt picked up around the wheels; stay closer to opponent cars and the asphalt grit their wheels pick up will leave scratches on your paint.
Speaking of paintwork, the ray tracing in Forza Motorsport sounds like it’s going to go down a treat. Multiple photogrammetric models were used to capture the different ways light interacts with different paint styles, making your car look more realistic as you race through different environments and lighting conditions.
Yeah a lot of these things can sound like they’re extra details on top of a game and how Forza plays will come down to more than whether the ray tracing paint picks up the dirt nicely but I love it in a game where my character my avatar, reflects its journey through the world. And it sounds like, between the sound profiles, the dirt modeling, and all the upgrades I can make to my vehicles, Forza Motorsport will do just that. It’s something that could make it one of the best racing games, if not one of the best Xbox Series X games, or at least compete with Gran Turismo 7.
Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t announce a release date for Forza Motorsport, only saying it would be out in 2023.