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Blasting through the Outback in an Ariel Nomad is a lot of fun.
G’day mate; are you ready for an open-world Outback adventure? If so, welcome to Forza Horizon 3, cobber. (Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the mildly unfunny Australian slang.) Another year brings us another Forza racing game, and since this is an even-numbered year, that means it’s coming in the form of an open-world entry in the Horizon half of the franchise.
This one, like the last two, was hand-coded in the UK by Playground Games, and it continues the series’ geographical love for equal chunks of slick city driving, carved muddy paths, and amber waves of driveable grain. The location has changed, but the hipster-friendly setup remains the same: you’re asked to set up and promote a giant car-and-concert festival. What better way to do so than to race fast-‘n-crazy across a giant, real-world locale?
Microsoft says that the map is twice the size of the previous, Mediterranean-obsessed game—which might explain the game’s hefty 47GB install size—and you get a number of different environments, from suburban beach towns and the built-up city of Surfer’s Paradise to wilder expanses of rainforest and the dried-out, scorched-earth Outback. You’ll traverse that substantial map while jumping from one car to the next, and the game ships with 350 vehicles to choose from. Many of these return from their appearance in Forza Motorsport 6, although quite a few new ones join the pack because of their apparent off-road prowess, like the extremely fun Ariel Nomad.
The game stresses individuality from the get-go, with new superficial perks like selectable avatars (finally, Forza has female and ethnically diverse drivers who aren’t masked by giant helmets), hundreds of spoken names to choose from (“Jonathan” is in there, but not Aussie gems like “Bruce” or “Sheila,” sadly), and up to eight characters in your custom license plate. (My coworker Sam Machkovech opted for “BUTTSTUF,” so, apparently, the game’s profanity filter is relatively loose, as is its stupidity meter. Geez, Sam.)
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Source: Ars Technica – Forza Horizon 3 gains online co-op but messes with car physics