Ahead of the game’s launch we had the chance to sit down with the team at Playground Games to discuss the development of Forza Horizon 5, and take a peek under the hood to talk about the tech driving it all.

A snippet from our massive interview.

“Right from the very start of development, one of our goals was to make the biggest and best Horizon game yet,” Mike Brown, Creative Director at Playground Games says. Forza Horizon 5 is the latest entry in the critically acclaimed and popular open-world racing series, and with its digital representation of Mexico it’s also the most ambitious Forza to date.

Outside of overhauling and improving how each of the 500-plus real-world vehicles looks and handles, it’s the first Horizon to take advantage of Xbox Series X and S hardware. Not to mention the latest in PC graphics technology from NVIDIA and AMD. And with that it pushes the size and scope of what an open-world racer can be.

“From a design side, when you're building an open-world that you want people to spend time in and to explore there's real challenges,” Mike continues. “You can't just make a space 50% bigger and be like, great, player’s are going to love it. You have to make sure that there's a good reason for the size. That there's always new things to see, new areas to explore, and that it isn’t a case of, for lack of a better term, copy-pasted areas.”

In terms of activities and things to see and so, Forza Horizon 5 is just about overflowing with possibility. A single and multiplayer dream come true for fans of all things four-wheeled. Races, drifting, stunts, working together to smash pinatas in a fun little mini-game. But, as we’ve seen across previous entries, exploration is also a key part of the picture. That thing where you’re discovering new and wondrous digital locales. On that front Forza Horizon 5 takes everything to the next level.

Our Full Forza Horizon 5 Interview