I am a car game addict. There, I said it. My ideal day at home is with my Xbox and driving in whatever game piques my interest. In that same light, I thought it would be a GREAT idea to share some of my favorites over the past few years and turn them into a series. I feel like there is no other way to start this than with my personal favorite game of all time, Forza Horizon 3.
This game has a deep meaning to me, as it was the game that got me into racing games in general. I had always been a car person; my kindergarten folder had a Corvette on it, and I always played with my abundant collection of Hot Wheels. But this game really was a big part of my childhood, and I will never forget getting this game with my brand new Xbox One that I got on Christmas Day. Enough backstory, let’s get to the game.
Forza Horizon 3 was the 3rd installment of the Forza Horizon series. This is not to be confused with its older brother, Forza Motorsport, as they are 2 separate game series that share the same name, but have many differences in their gameplay. The most obvious difference being the Forza Horizon is an open-world racing game, while Forza Motorsport focuses primarily on racing on the track.
Forza Horizon 3 was also developed by Playground Games, a game studio based in the UK. It was released on the Xbox One and Windows 10 on September 27, 2016, almost 10 Years ago!
The premise of Forza Horizon is simple yet so darn entertaining. You start as the director of the Horizon Festival, which this time is taking place in a fictional version of Australia. You level up, gain fans, and complete showdowns to advance the growth of the festivals. You level up by racing, doing time trials, and stunts. This game has a total of 350 cars at launch, and that doesn’t even include DLC or add-ons! My favorite car to drive around the map is the 2009 Lamborghini LP700-4
The game also has “barn finds.” What is this, you may ask? Well, it is a challenge where you are given a location on a map and are tasked with finding the “barn” in the region. Once you do, a cutscene plays, and voila! You have found a classic car that needs restoration. Once it’s restored, you can drive around Australia in the new car. It was always fun doing reckless driving with your car, in the middle of the woods, to find some rusty old barn.
The game has other niche features like car tuning and car meets that I won’t cover here, but they are something to note if you want to rediscover this classic. Sadly, with the online cycle ending, there’s no way to buy it off the Xbox store or the Microsoft store if you’re on PC, so you’re out of luck there. The only way to get this game is if you have the physical copy or if you already bought it digitally. But that doesn’t stop the masterclass that this game was for its time, and it sure had a big impact on racing games as a whole.
