Forza Motorsport 6

Forza Motorsport 5 – the first game in the series for the Xbox One – felt like a new-gen experience on the road even though some of the career structure and multiplayer at launch wasn't as strong. Forza 6 (out September 15) is playing to its strengths. With the addition of racing in the night and the rain, your behind-the-wheel experience takes a turn for the interesting.

Water on the course and under your tires may not be exactly what you want when you're trying to race at high speeds and not go barreling into the safety tires, but as a gamer, it's a welcome challenge that looks great and adds a wrinkle to the driving experience.

The rain drops in the cockpit view sweep across your windshield against the direction of your turn, and the brake lights of the cars ahead of you cut through the rain.

Water pools in depressions in the track, which not only splash up when someone drives through them, but they can cause you to hydroplane. It's a little unnerving to loose momentary control of your car, but it's not a given for every puddle.

Nighttime driving can be equally dangerous, limiting your field of view, and it's cool how your headlights can bounce off the reflective paint on the track barriers, causing a slight bloom as your headlights scan past them. Nighttime also means cooler temperatures, which means less grip.

As cool as night driving and the rain are, they can't be used on every one of the games 26 locations (with 10 new tracks for the series). While it makes sense that you can't make it rain on a desert track, for instance, I wonder where else the rain isn't allowed. Microsoft would not say specifically which or how many tracks did or did not have night or rain options. I also asked if there were different gradations of rain (light, heavy, etc.), but did not receive a definitive answer. I'm also unsure if night turns into day dynamically on all tracks, but the game does have the Le Mans endurance race, so there's hope.

Variable difficulty has always been a staple of the series, letting drivers of all skill levels push the envelope within their means. A new facet of the game's customizable difficulty this year is the introduction of mods. These are goals you can add to each race (we saw a race with three slots for mods) that present you with specific challenges for which you'll gain more XP if you pass them. For instance, we saw one mod tasking the driver to start the race at the back of the pack and finish well without using any rewinds. Mods have a scarcity rating, and are earned as a reward for doing well in different facets of the game.

Forza Motorsports 6 ups the multiplayer field to 24 racers, and also new to that aspect of the title are leagues. These are more tightly enforced divisions of racers where your skill and temperament as a driver are closely monitored to ensure parity with other players.

The game's career mode and drivatars are of course back, with the former featuring 80 one-off showcase races as well as six full-fledged career paths through different racing branches (super street, grand touring, pro racing, sport icons, and Ultimate), and the latter being refined through copious amount of data from Forza 5 as well as Forza Horizon 2.

We'll have to wait and see how all of the game's constituent elements come together, but so far it's clear developer Turn 10 is trying hard to outpace its previous efforts.