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Forza Horizon 3 made its debut on stage at E3 2016 in Los Angeles, the next open-world racing game from the acclaimed UK studio in Leamington Spa – Playground Games. Players will be heading to Australia, taking charge of the Horizon Festival, combined with all-new social features such as Xbox Play Anywhere, Groove Music integration, and the return of the Auction House and Storefront to make this the ultimate open-world racer on Xbox One and Windows 10.
Australia is the new home of the Horizon Festival in 2016. It’s one of the most beautiful and varied countries in the world, making it the perfect setting for Forza Horizon 3. Playground Games has translated the land down under into the largest and most diverse open world ever seen in the Forza Horizon series. Australia is massive in Forza Horizon 3, it’s huge, like twice the size of Forza Horizon 2’s Southern Europe map. Forza Horizon 3’s vision of Australia captures the spectacular natural beauty, the tremendous diversity, and environmental variety that makes the country one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.
Players will be able to explore the bioluminescent caves of Australia, to skipping across the beach and skimming the ocean surf as you speed past the famed “Twelve Apostles” limestone stacks. Forza Horizon 3 has driving experiences that players have never seen before in Horizon. Forza Horizon 3 is packed full of diversity. There’s even the famed dusty Outback that will be a pure test of any car’s abilities; blasting through the dense and lush rainforests; testing your driving skills on city streets – the unique driving experiences in Forza Horizon 3 seemingly never end.
Explore Australia in Forza Horizon 3 with more than 350 Forzavista cars, including the new Lamborghini Centenario cover car. The Ford Raptor will also be appearing as the co-cover car of Forza Horizon 3. Each of these cars are recreated with ForzaVista detail, including full cockpit views, working lights and wipers, and new vehicle types bringing all-new driving experiences to the Forza franchise. Players will be able to take their rides across new Danger Sign Jumps, Convoys, and Drift Zones, which are just “some of the exciting new driving challenges” that await players.
In addition, there’s a new selection of Barn Finds, and Playground Games are bringing all kinds of new vehicles to Forza Horizon 3, inspired by the locations you’ll be exploring. These include extreme off-roaders like B.J. Baldwin’s Trophy Truck. Turn 10 Studios will reveal the full list of cars in Forza Horizon 3 later this Summer.
Forza Horizon 3 will visually delight players, running in 1080p on Xbox One and a striking 4K resolution on Windows 10. Playground have gone to extraordinary lengths to create “the most visually impressive Forza Horizon game ever,” using new state-of-the-art technology. From the trailer and gameplay demoed, Forza Horizon 3 looks to be a visually stunning, and will set a new standard for graphics.
The Australian sky is big, bold, and beautiful. There’s dazzling varieties and subtleties in colour and cloud formations. Playground Games wanted to capture those unique Australian skies in all their glory. In order to do that, they’ve built a custom 12K HDR camera rig to capture the sky in incredibly precise photos – thousands of photos, in fact, creating a 24-hour timelapse video of the real Australian sky, projected onto the skydome in Forza Horizon 3. That means that you’re not just surrounded by the intense natural glory of Australia, you’re also driving under authentic Australian skies. It’s simply stunning.
“With Forza Horizon 3, we’re building an entirely new and different vision of the Horizon Festival, a place where you’re in charge,” developer Playground Games explained.
The Horizon Festival is in Australia for Forza Horizon 3, and now you’re in charge. Normally, you’re a participant of the Horizon Festival, but now you’re the boss. That means you’ll be making the decisions that affect the festival, choosing when and where to expand the festival sites, all the way down to the music that is played and the events that take place – the decisions are up to you. Your goal is to win fans until your festival is the most popular in the world. Players will have the ability to curate their own events and make the Horizon Festival their own, tailing everyone experience to their own taste.
With Horizon Blueprints, you can take any of the hundreds of pre-curated events in Forza Horizon 3 and customize them to your own exact specifications. That includes changing the route for a particular event, the time of day and weather conditions, eligible cars, event restrictions, and more. You can create your own event name, which is important for sharing it online. Your in-game world will be automatically populated with events created by your friends. By playing them, you’ll earn the same rewards and fans that you would normally earn for completing preset events built directly into Forza Horizon 3.
Bucket Lists are also making a comeback for Forza Horizon 3. Blueprints also work with these, and players can use the Bucket List Blueprint to create brand new challenges, using the same tools that the game designers use. Players can select a challenge type, the car they wish to use (including its livery and tuning setup), set the conditions, choose the music, give it a name, and set the difficulty by completing the event yourself. Then you can send that Bucket List Challenge to your friends as a direct challenge to see if they can top your score. Showcase Events will also be returning that pit you and your car against a fleet of powerboats – even a giant zeppelin!
As the boss of the Horizon Festival, your goal is to earn fans. That means attracting the best drivers available to join you and help bring more fans to the party. Drivatars will also feature in Forza Horizon 3 as expected, and you’ll be able to drive with and against them. In addition, you have the opportunity to hire your friends, and your friends’ Drivatars.
With the Drivatar Lineup feature, players can hire a friend’s Drivatar just be finding them in the world and beating them in a race. Once you’ve got them onboard, you’ll earn rewards based on their performance in the Horizon Festival. However, there’s only a limited amount of slots available, meaning you’ll only want to keep your highest-performing friends in your Festival – and you’ll be informed how things are progressing each time you log on to the game. If your friend isn’t getting the job done, let them go and look for another hot shoe to take their place. Yes, you will actually be able to fire other racers in Forza Horizon 3.
Forza Horizon 3 features 350 Forzavista cars, and it will be a “gold mine” when it comes down to customization. There’s a host of new visual customization options in Forza Horizon 3, including new off-road and rally parts, more than 30 new rim styles from manufacturers like Rotiform, Fifteen 52, and ADV.1 and, for the first time, widebody kits from industry leaders like Rocket Bunny and Liberty Walk. Plus, you can expect all the livery and tuning options that Forza fans come to expect in the series.
Music plays a huge role in the Horizon Festival, and as the boss, you will want to drive to the music that you live. There’s more radio stations coming from music styles like hop, heavy rock and punk – alongside Horizon favourite stations like Bass Arena and Horizon Pulse. In addition, Forza Horizon 3 will feature stations from labels such as Hospital Records, Epitaph Records, and Vagrant Records, as well as the latest music from cutting-edge Australian label Future Classic. That’s more radio stations, covering a broader range of music, than ever before.
That’s not all though. Forza Horizon 3 will ensure you drive to the music you love with the brand new Groove Radio station – allowing players to stream their own personal music collection from the cloud – just add your music to your OneDrive, create a playlist in Groove Music on Windows 10, and Horizon 3 will stream that playlist into your game on Xbox One and Windows 10. Your music in what’s shaping up to the best racing game out there.
Forza Horizon 3 will also be the “most connected” and “most social” racing game out there, according to Turn 10. Forza Horizon 3 will be one of the first Xbox Play Anywhere titles out there. When you buy the digital version of Forza Horizon 3, you’ll be able to play the game on both Xbox One and on Windows 10. You can play, save your progress at any time, and pick up on the other platform. You’ll also be able to seamlessly play with your friends regardless of whether they are playing on Xbox One or Windows 10. Horizon 3 is the first true cross-platform racer out there with Xbox One and Windows 10.
Take advantage of real cross-platform play in Forza Horizon 3 with four-player campaign co-op. Everything available in Forza Horizon 3’s solo campaign can be played with up to four players in a cooperative mode. You can drop in or out at will, and everything you earned in a co-op session with friends will carry on with you when you return to solo play. You also never have to experience the same content twice.
Forza Horizon 3 is truly becoming the home for creators, especially with the return of the Auction House and Storefront to Forza Horizon 3. Players will be able to buy and sell cars between one another, with the Auction House acting as a hub for fan to coolest cars, with paint jobs and fantastic tunes. There will also be a new rating system for painters and tuners based on how many downloads, likes, and uses their creations have, so browsers can quickly identify the community’s top creators.
The Storefront will be place for players to show off their latest creations, including liveries, tuning setups, photos, and custom vinyl creations. You can also easily follow someone whose Storefront creations you like, and you’ll be informed whenever they create something new. The Auction House and Storefront features will work seamlessly across both Xbox One and Windows 10.
In addition, 1000-player Car Clubs will also be returning. Add this onto the four-player campaign co-op, along with the return of the Auction House and Storefront, ontop of Xbox Play Anywhere, Forza Horizon 3 is packed with some of the most amazing ways to enjoy the best cars in the world – and that’s not all. You can expect Car Meets to return with seamless multiplayer and no lobbies to get in the way. Playground games like Infected and Virus will also be returning, along with a brand-new mode titled Flag Rush. There’s also Rivals events, Online Free Roam and “the new Online Adventure.” That’s a lot of content to sink in.
Forza Horizon 3 will be available on September 23rd 2016 for Ultimate Edition owners on Xbox One and Windows 10. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will head out to the festival on September 27th. Multiple bundles are now available to pre-order on the Xbox Store, and Turn 10 will also be rewarding long-time Forza players with different rewards at launch.
