Traditionally, game sequels are marked by improvements and additions: more guns, bigger levels, expanded storyline, more selections, customizations, etc. It's considerably rare when a sequel will have less to offer than its precursor, but that's the case for Turn 10's addition to its popular racer, Forza 5.
The number of cars players had to choose from in Forza 4 was certainly impressive at 500. But Forza 5 won't even have half that number of cars to select from. While 200 cars is certainly still a decent range of options, what gives?
Speaking to Eurogamer, the studio's Creative Director Dan Greenawalt explained the logic behind the decision, which is actually related to ensuring that they give gamers not only brand new, but also the most authentic options.
"We want that to be the standard for next-generation. Our goal's not to carry old content over - and even with all the cars, we did the same process. There were some inaccuracies, and some cars were old-spec that we'd updated from Forza 2 to 3 to 4. But they didn't have the poly count where we wanted it - and they weren't as easy to up-res, so we just recaptured them. Some of them, the spec was good and we could add polygons where we needed them. So it came down to this rating system - and any track or car that wasn't an A grade got either chucked or recaptured.
"Some of them needed light updating, and some of them needed heavy updating. Silverstone, for example, was a complete recapture. Several of our tracks were just plain wrong, either because they were poorly captured and technology's moved on, or the track's changed like Silverstone."
Gamers can choose to get more cars if they like, courtesy of DLC. Turn 10 will be doling out packs of 10-cars each over the next six months following the game's release. Fans can get the cars at a discount provided they shell out $50 for the game's season pass, something which was caused a bit of a mixed reaction according to Greenawalt.
"The response has been good. That's not to say everyone's been happy about it. It's just to say that the response with people that have been buying it and redeeming it, it's one thing to buy it but if it's a season pass it's whether or not you log in every month to get it. People have been making the purchase and then logging in. It's kind of like the whole gym membership thing - you buy 6 months and you never go. With the season passes, people redeem it, so we're keeping people playing for 6 months."
Forza 5 launches alongside the Xbox One later this month.
