Forza Motorsport 2023: False Start

[Queen Nothing]

Whew. I have some really mixed feelings about this so far. For a start, the performance is sobering. I'm running Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra settings w/o RTX at 60 FPS on 1080p, but Forza can barely hold 55 FPS on the Medium preset with RTX off and DLSS set on Performance.

Then there's running into the obvious Engagement™-motivated changes to progression. In previous Motorsport entries, there was minimal grind to get everything for a car and get right into tuning and the creative side of the game. Now, cars have to be levelled up to unlock upgrade categories and there's a secondary currency to get upgrades. Call it a caRPG all you want, but nobody is going to be fooled.

That would almost be fine if the most important track was present for trucking through levels, but the Nordschleife is nowhere to be found. And the tracks are almost all underwhelming. For a start, nothing comes close to compensating for a lack of the Nordschleife, and most of the tracks are small and simple, or set at speedways. Swiss Alps is missing, Twin Ring Motegi is missing, the long-demanded Fujimi Kaido is missing too. Le Mans is boring for most classes, leaving ... Spa and Suzuka to carry the game. Again, the absence of the Nordschleife is constantly felt.

The cars at launch are also not very exciting. While plenty of modern high-end cars and e-trash have been added, many classics from previous titles are missing. No DeLorean DMC-12, no Plymouth Fury, and several muscle cars from previous games, including Australian classics, are also missing when they were prominent only as far back as FM7. Again, more usual cars (Mustang EcoBoost) are missing. I would comment on if engine downswaps are finally in the game, but I haven't unlocked that category yet because Engagement™.

I've also noticed that visuals look washed-out and muted, causing the visual customization and paint to look similarly off. Black cars look dark gray, and white cars look light gray. The vividness of Forza Horizon or even previous Motorsport entries is simply not here.

Vividness is also missing from the presentation, which is drab and basic to a fault, with music so bland and corporate that it could be a medical cure for insomnia. There's a complete absence of personality in this game. Whether that's better or worse than Forza Horizon's cringey corporate-attempt-at-cool personality is a matter of perspective, I suppose.

However, it's nice to see that all the cars are present (such as they are) without an Auction House or time-gating. It's nice to see that the level of simulation (with all assists off) has gotten a couple notches towards simulation and away from the simcade feeling of prior Motorsport entries. Since it's still not a genre-wide feature yet, including female drivers is something to be praised in Forza.

But yeah ... right now, Motorsport is only worth anyone's time just by virtue of FM7 being an old, buggy mess and GT7 being overwhelmingly exploitative for Engagement™ by comparison. FM2023 has a ways to go before being genuinely compelling, and without the Nordschleife or Fujimi Kaido, it shouldn't have bothered launching at all. One wonders what Turn 10 have been doing since 2017 to release in this state.

[patrick68794]

This game should be running far better than Cyberpunk does.

Also the washed out look is a bug some people are running into on PC.

[Voodoochile]

10/10 review. Agree with all your points. The game has a solid foundation but lacks in many aspect, some of which technical, which is a shame for such a huge company like MS and Turn 10. Time will tell if this will turn in to a proper game and will be able to keep people engaged.

[Jakubi]

Did you compare a 2023 game to a 2020 one. Also you preordered it for 100€ when you could have it for 10€ in gamepass.

Then there is the point that noone AAA game so far, had a good launch besides Baldurs Gate, all the new games are broken, unbalanced using old assets, animations, sounds etc.

The only hope is GTA 6 in one or two years hopefully and the next witcher game, if they dont ♥♥♥♥ it up like cyberpunk.

I was aswell a dumbcabage preordering starfield and I learned my lesson, hopefully you will learn yours.

[BM]

I've bought the game yesterday and refunded 6 hours later without even launching it.
Looks like I need a $4000 rig to run this abomination that still looks like ♥♥♥♥ from what I saw so far

[Queen Nothing]

Originally posted by Ronin:

Did you compare a 2023 game to a 2020 one. Also you preordered it for 100€ when you could have it for 10€ in gamepass.

Then there is the point that noone AAA game so far, had a good launch besides Baldurs Gate, all the new games are broken, unbalanced using old assets, animations, sounds etc.

The only hope is GTA 6 in one or two years hopefully and the next witcher game, if they dont ♥♥♥♥ it up like cyberpunk.

I was aswell a dumbcabage preordering starfield and I learned my lesson, hopefully you will learn yours.

I got the Premium add-on with the Game Pass version, so I only spent $35. Cyberpunk also had its requirements increased in its overhaul, and beyond a doubt is more visually demanding and computationally-complex than Forza. If one of the most demanding and buggy games around runs significantly better than a Microsoft-backed flagship game in 2023, that's an issue.

[RickKickem39]

I have the Steam version, and RTX 4070Ti and a Core i9-12900KF and it runs 75-90 fps at 1440p with everything set to max, including RT. I just downloaded new Nvidia drivers this morning, I dunno why everyones 4090s are running like crap

[patrick68794]

Originally posted by Rick Kickem:

I have the Steam version, and RTX 4070Ti and a Core i9-12900KF and it runs 75-90 fps at 1440p with everything set to max, including RT. I just downloaded new Nvidia drivers this morning, I dunno why everyones 4090s are running like crap

Runs great on my 4090. 90+ fps at native 4K max settings with RT

[Middy]

Performance is great on my end, but I agree with the muted visuals. Try painting the rims on any car, you can't get a solid colour, it just tints the silver slightly. UI leaves a lot to be desired, I'm trying to buy a car and it's just so awkward how everything scrolls horizontally with barely any information on screen because the thumbnails are all so huge. All I'm trying to do is see what's available, but it's such a slow process.

Also, minor, but incredibly stupid thing... why the ♥♥♥♥ does changing cameras during a replay necessitate a freaking load screen?

[patrick68794]

Originally posted by Middy:

Performance is great on my end, but I agree with the muted visuals. Try painting the rims on any car, you can't get a solid colour, it just tints the silver slightly. UI leaves a lot to be desired, I'm trying to buy a car and it's just so awkward how everything scrolls horizontally with barely any information on screen because the thumbnails are all so huge. All I'm trying to do is see what's available, but it's such a slow process.

Also, minor, but incredibly stupid thing... why the ♥♥♥♥ does changing cameras during a replay necessitate a freaking load screen?

What's wrong with the paint on wheels?

https://imgur.com/yw0kXib

[shadow82]

Originally posted by patrick68794:

Runs great on my 4090. 90+ fps at native 4K max settings with RT

Performance are good on high end machines, the problem is that it falls down pretty quickly as you go down in the mid end machines (2+ years old hardware), especially if the processor is not amazing. Optimization seems to be far from great without sacrificing quality to a level where to get it to run smoothly it ends up looking way worse than Forza 7 on the same hardware...

For people tinkering with setup, it also seems to not handle very well setup changes without a game restart and could get you worse performance even when choosing lower settings...