Forza Horizon 4, the best racing game, is now on Steam
Better than Burnout Paradise
Forza Horizon 4 has arrived on Steam today after a couple of years of being solely available on the Microsoft store. Meagre news, maybe, but I'll take any excuse to evangelise this supremely silly, beautiful, joyful racing game. And I've never played a Forza before it, and I don't even really like cars.
Matthew did a good job of celebrating it in this video:
To me, Forza Horizon 4 is the successor to Burnout Paradise: an open world racing game that's more committed to the fun of throwing cars around than the reality of motorsport or physics.
You'll smash into farm walls and won't slow down. You'll race against hovercrafts and fighter jets and trains. New cars are unlocked via races or through barn finds, and you'll quickly amass a vast car collection, but it never feels like the gaudy wealth porn of the modern Test Drive games. It feels wholesome; car collecting like you did with toy cars when you were six years old.
The driving itself is adjustable enough that it could accommodate a dolt like me, but you can turn up the difficulty and turn off the driving aids if you like. Whatever the case, this is a game that wants you to have a good time. The menus get out of the way, it's quick to load and skip to new events, and it has one of the best opening ten minutes of any game I've ever played.
I can't say enough good things about it, and I'm re-installing it via Steam as I write this. If you want to join me, it'll cost you £55/$60/€70 for the standard edition. And if that's too steep, it's still available as part of Xbox Game Pass.