Forza Horizon

Microsoft and developer Playground Games took the wraps off of Forza Horizon, a exciting offshoot of the Forza series that explores new territory for the racing franchise.

The Forza series is known for its sim-based racing, but as the name implies, Forza Horizon takes the franchise in new directions.

Taking its inspiration from the fictional Horizon Festival, the game embraces more than just licensed tracks and cars like the regular Forza series. It embraces racing in an open world, freeform state.

The game takes place in Colorado, where design director Ralph Fulton says the development team found the perfect mix of fun roads to race and beautiful scenery. The Horizon Festival itself is a mix of different influences, from car culture to a giant summer music festival. In the game itself, it's basically an exaggerated hub where you can buy cars (via an auto show-type presentation skin), upgrade your rides, get races, customize your car, and more. Of course, it's also a competition.

But when you hit the roads themselves, you can do whatever you want. Similar to the Test Drive Unlimited series, you can simply drive around looking for whatever races come your way or you can explore. You can take on offline challenges from whatever Festival racers are roaming about (there are also civilian AI cars about, too), or you can race them later when you feel like it. The choice is yours.

Whether you're in a race or not, you'll gain Horizon Points for more than 30 skills and combo moves. Horizon Points are what you must earn to work your way up the offline and online ladder. You get these for things like drifts, close calls, wreaking things in the environment, burnouts, racing through speed zones, and much more. You'll also get them for simply exploring. In the section we saw in a demo, players got Horizon Points for simply finding one of 206 roads (over 65 surface types). I'm not sure if this represents all the roads in the game or just those in a certain section of the world.

I got to try a short race in Forza Horizon, and it felt like the normal Forza, complete with all the physics you'd expect. Fulton says that team wants to make the game pick-up-and-play accessible without sacrificing the fidelity that the brand has become known for. The car physics are the same as Forza, but instead the default assists and car setups have been tweaked (you can also change them to your liking).

Forza Horizon uses the Kinect peripheral via its voice command functionality. Players will be able to use the Kinect like a GPS transporter system. All you have to do is call out a map destination or objective, and the game will lay down a green guide line on the road leading you to your stated destination.

Multiplayer not only encompasses the constant comparison of Horizon Points between you and your friends, but the mode utilizes all the single-player race modes, as well as many of the popular Playground Games from Forza 4. Fulton also mentioned a Rivals system that produces one-on-one showdowns both online and off.

Forza has mastered sim-based racing, and now it's setting its sights on the open road.

Forza Horizon comes out on the Xbox 360 on October 23rd.