Xbox racing fans were left questioning myriad elements of Forza Motorsport upon its launch in 2023 and, following a blog post from developer Turn 10 Studios designed to address these complaints, have only grown more frustrated.
A “message to the Motorsport community” was posted on Forza’s website by game director Andy Beaudoin, creative director Chris Esaki, and executive producer Trevor Laupmanis to “thank you for your support and feedback since launch, reflect on some of the things we have learned, and share what you can expect from us in the coming months.”
In what it said would be the first of quarterly updates on hot topics within the community (to go alongside various other forms of communication), the Forza team addressed the car progression system, race regulations, and AI racers.
Frustration comes at the lack of definitive statements, however. In addressing the car progression system, for example, Turn 10 said it’s “exploring changes to the system” but it will “take some time to properly evaluate options, make the necessary code changes, and thoroughly test those code changes.”
Similar sentiments came for the other two topics. “It’s important that we capture all the data that we can about a race when [race] rulings happen in error, so over the next few months, we will be working with some long-time competitive Motorsport players to gather direct telemetry from them while they’re playing,” Turn 10 said regarding race regulations.
“We understand how important it is to have fair and competitive AI in Motorsport and our top priorities in early 2024 are addressing overly aggressive AI, while also getting a cleaner race start into turn one where many of the issues above most severely manifest and impact players,” it said about AI drivers, meaning Turn 10 didn’t have any actual solutions for players currently despite Forza Motorsport launching more than three months prior in October 2023.
Players therefore took to the internet to express their frustration, saying Turn 10 essentially said nothing about these issues in the post and complaining about other problems not mentioned at all.
“No call to action, no roadmap, no progress update. This is a yap session,” said crasy8s on Reddit. “AI fixes could come in a month or in December but they are dreaming if they think players are gonna sit idly by waiting for drip feed content.”
“Three game directors and basically nothing has been said,” added Cantewakinyan. “Amazing. Do not praise them for this.” Physical-Result7378 chimed in too: “All they say is, ‘We released an untested, unfinished, and unpolished game a year too early. Thank you for your money. We will talk to some streamers if they think we should fix something’.”
A similar comment came from cooReey: “This kind of statement would be okay if it came a month after the release, not in freaking January. This is just a PR move to buy yourself more time.”
Another common sentiment came regarding the lack of comments on the single-player mode. “My biggest problem is still the awful career mode and there’s no mention of it,” said Zafir on ResetEra. “The lackluster career mode killed this game for me more than any other issue and this doesn’t mention it at all,” Cheesetriangles added. “I have no interest in racing online.”
Forza Motorsport arrived as a reboot of the long-running racing simulator franchise, essentially being Forza Motorsport 8 but dropping the numbered branding. Spin-off franchise Forza Horizon, which features arcade-style gameplay in an open world, has perhaps overtaken Motorsport in terms of critical reception, with IGN giving the latest a 10/10 in our review.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
