The massive elevation change not only provides one of the best roads in the series to date – a switchback-filled mountain run I expect will become a drift mecca for the sideways squad – but it's a killer display of Horizon 5's immense draw distance.

I love games that make me feel small in a vast new space, and Horizon 5 does this very effectively. The massive elevation change not only provides one of the best roads in the series to date – a switchback-filled mountain run I expect will become a drift mecca for the sideways squad – but it’s a killer display of Horizon 5’s immense draw distance. The Playground Games team has stressed that it’s the highest point in any Horizon game, but you won’t have to take their word for it – just drive up there and you’ll see how much it dwarfs both Horizon 3’s Blizzard Mountain and Horizon 4’s Fortune Island expansions. That size is best observed from atop the Gran Caldera Volcano. The result is a fantastic map – and the biggest in the series so far by a striking margin. It’s not exactly a perfect recreation, of course – as with all Horizon worlds to date it pays no mind to reality, smooshing together a stylised vision of Mexico at its most interesting. There’s even a giant stadium for soccer shenanigans. There’s the semi-arid desert of the map’s interior, filled with towering cacti and stubborn shrubs, and the high and rocky volcanic peak of Gran Caldera. There’s rolling green farmland draped in crops and windswept grass, and also a picturesque gorge that looks like it’s been plucked from a Western movie. There’s the charmingly colourful city of Guanajuato and its maze-like network of cobblestone streets and tunnels, contrasted with a sleepy coastal town flanked by the ocean on one side and mangroves on the other. There’s Baja, where the sun-baked tarmac hugs the coast as the parched, sandy desert blends into the beach, and deep jungle, where muddy tracks criss-cross through ancient temples, abandoned airstrips, and thickets. Horizon 5's tapestry of colourful locations and backdrops more closely resembles Horizon 3, but it feels noticeably more extensive than even Playground's remarkable 2016 riff on Australia. Horizon 5’s tapestry of colourful locations and backdrops more closely resembles Horizon 3, but it feels noticeably more extensive than even Playground’s remarkable 2016 riff on Australia. The breadth of Playground’s wonderfully diverse map of Mexico is exceptional, and it comes as an extremely exotic and interesting array of environments to get lost in after three years in Horizon 4’s beautiful but broadly more-uniform Britain. What’s impressive is that Forza Horizon 5 isn’t just all this airlifted to a different part of the world it’s that it’s all this and a remarkable amount more.

The Super7, where we could participate in custom-built racing, driving, and stunt-based challenges made by others, plus create and share our own. The Eliminator, Horizon’s very clever and effective take on bringing the battle royale format to a racing game. The Festival Playlist, where new activities were available every week. But that was day one Playground then spent another three years cramming in even more things to do.

Playground Games had taken the impeccable open-world racing of all the Horizon games to date, then stuffed in simulated seasons, a shared-world multiplayer overhaul, and a shift in how the team told their mini automotive stories. Below you will find a summary of items fixed or improved upon in this update.To understand just how big Forza Horizon 5 is, we have to briefly look back at Forza Horizon 4, which truly ballooned into an absolute colossus of a racing game back in 2018. We're constantly working to improve the experience in Forza Horizon 5.

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