It’s E3 season so naturally our eyes were glued to our screens waiting for new racing game announcements. Xbox delivered and then some when they revealed Forza Horizon 5 during their E3 2021 showcase livestream event.

Many people weren’t even sure if another Forza Horizon game was coming at all since Forza Horizon 4 is doing so well and is heralded as one of the best driving games ever. Yet, Playground Games (the development team behind the Forza Horizon franchise) did not want to rest on their laurels.

Forza Horizon 5 trailer

The reveal of Forza Horizon 5 promises the biggest and best game in the series so far and Playground Games shared quite a bit of information along with the trailer. However, there are some things that are still a mystery.

So, in this article we’re going to cover the most important parts of what Playground Games covered in the Forza Horizon 5 reveal. We’re also going to talk about some of the mysteries left out of the reveal and what we want to see in the full version of Forza Horizon 5 when it releases.

Mexico is the new location for Forza Horizon 5

After weeks of rumors, debates, and speculation, Playground Games confirmed that Forza Horizon 5 will take place in Mexico. While some fans were hoping that Japan would be the new location, the developers believed that for this game Mexico was the superior choice. Why? Simply put the development team fell in love with the very diverse environments that Mexico offers. There are rainforests, deserts, mountains, beaches, and even ancient Mayan ruins.

Franchise Creative Director, Mike Brown also assured that their recreation of Mexico will be “honest, authentic, and filled with love.”

New wheels and widebody kits are coming

One of the key elements of any Forza Horizon title is the ability to customize the cars that players choose to drive, race, and drift in the game. This is also an area of criticism that previous games have faced as some felt that the selection of parts was not large enough and not entirely representative of what the audience wants.

To address that, Playground Games announced that there will be 100 new wheels added to the existing wheel library as well as “hundreds” of new visual upgrades and “thousands” of new performance upgrades.

No specific visual upgrades were named but in the reveal trailer a Mitsubishi Evo X can be seen rocking a Streetfighter widebody kit. Hopefully this means we’ll see even more new body kits from other brands as well.

Forza Horizon 5 will have mini-games

The Mexico world map (which is 1.5 times larger than the UK map in Forza Horizon 4) will have a ton of events and races for players to participate in. Adding to that are new “arcade mini-games” that players can participate in as a group with others online. Playground Games did not go into detail over all the mini-games that will be available. However, they did show off one called Piñata Pop. In this mini-game, Piñatas will be dropped from a cargo plane in the sky and players have to destroy as many of them as they can with their cars before time runs out.

If that’s the example they led with then we expect the rest of the mini-games to be just as quirky and imaginative.

Forza Horizon 5 will release in 2021

If you’re already excited about Forza Horizon 5 then you’ll be happy to know that the game is confirmed to release this year on November 9th, 2021.

There will be three versions available: standard, deluxe, and premium.

The standard edition ($49.99) can be purchased digitally or as a physical disc and includes the base game.

The deluxe edition ($79.99) is digital only and comes with the game and a “car pass”. The car pass is essentially a way to pre-purchase the first six paid DLC car packs that will become available over the life of the game.

The premium edition ($99.99) nets players the most when it comes to virtual goodies. Just like the deluxe edition, the premium edition is digital only. It comes with the car pass, two expansion packs, in-game VIP status, a “welcome pack”, and four days early access to the game. That means while everyone else has to wait until November 9th to play. Premium edition owners can start playing Forza Horizon 5 on November 5th, 2021.

We want to see Toyota back in the game

Now it’s time to talk about some of the things we want to see in Forza Horizon 5 that were not addressed in the reveal. The first is that we want to see the return of Toyota to Forza. A few years ago Toyota backed out of having a presence in almost all racing games except Gran Turismo.

With the Toyota GR Supra out in the wild and the new Toyota GR 86 coming in the future, we hope that Forza was able to come to an understanding to get those cars in Forza Horizon 5.

We want an easier way to get limited edition cars

There are “playlists” in Forza Horizon 4 that players can participate in every week. If the player completes a certain amount of events in the playlist, they are awarded with cars that can’t be bought in the in-game dealership.

On paper this is a great idea. However, any adult reading this knows that it is hard to carve out time for gaming these days. Many adults can only allocate 30 minutes to an hour per week to get some gaming in. That means for those who are busy, they often miss out on earning these limited edition cars.

Eventually those cars make their way to the in-game auction house but they often command exorbitant prices. Which would require players putting in even more time they might not have just to earn the in-game credits to buy the cars they missed out on.

We hope that Playground Games finds some type of middle ground solution to keep these limited edition cars special while finding a way to make things a little easier for those who can’t quite devote as much game time.

More classic JDM cars

Forza Horizon 4 has literally hundreds of cars spanning tons of makes, models, and even categories. There are many rare cars, cult classics, and lots of Japanese cars in the roster. However, we think that Forza Horizon 4 did not have nearly enough classic JDM vehicles. Sure, some of the staples like the Datsun 240Z and early model Mazda RX-7s are in the game, but there could be so much more.

We really hope that Forza Horizon 5 includes many more 80s and 90s era Hondas, Nissans, Mitsubishis, and Toyotas. We hate to feel old but let’s face it: 80s and even 90s cars are “classics” now. We think more of those classics should be represented in Forza Horizon 5.

Are you excited for Forza Horizon 5? What features do you want Playground Games to include in this game that they haven’t in previous Forza Horizon games? Hit us up on Twitter at GTChannel and let us know what you think.

For now we’ll play the waiting game while hoping that Forza Horizon 5 is everything we hope it will be.

Forza Horizon 5 Revealed