Forza Horizon 4

''Forza Horizon 4'' is a 2018 racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on 2 October 2018 for Windows and Xbox One after being announced at Xbox's E3 2018 conference. An enhanced version of the game was released on Xbox Series X/S on 10 November 2020. The game is set in a fictionalised representation of areas of Great Britain. It is the fourth ''Forza Horizon'' title and eleventh instalment in the ''Forza'' series. The game is noted for its introduction of changing seasons to the series, as well as featuring several content-expanding updates which have included new game modes. A sequel, ''Forza Horizon 5'', was released on 9 November 2021.

Gameplay

''Forza Horizon 4'' is a racing video game set in an open world environment based in a fictionalised Great Britain, with regions that include condensed representations of Edinburgh, the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District (including Derwentwater), Ambleside and the Cotswolds (including Broadway), Bamburgh among others. The game features a route creator which enables players to create races using completely customised routes. The game takes place in a synchronised shared world, compared to the AI-driven 'drivatars' from its predecessors, with each server supporting up to 72 players. The game is also playable in offline mode.

The game features a dynamic weather system that also depicts the change of seasons. The environment in the world will change depending on the season: for example, Derwentwater would freeze over in winter and allow players the ability to drive on the ice to reach areas of the game world that would be inaccessible during all the other seasons. The seasons are fixed across the game's servers, meaning that all players will experience the same conditions at the same time. After completing a prologue series of events which introduce players to all four seasons, the shared-world seasons will change every week, with the changes happening on Thursdays at 2:30PM GMT. The season changes are forewarned to players in the game with a countdown clock, which, when finished, will trigger a short cinematic cutscene showing the previous season changing to the new one, although the cinematic will be delayed for players who are in the middle of an event or activity.

The game features over 750 licensed cars. Players have the opportunity to buy in-game houses which unlock new items, cars and game-play perks, including Horizon Promo and the ability to fast travel anywhere on the map.

Returning from ''Forza Horizon 3'', Wheelspins are prize spins with random rewards ranging from cars, Credits (in-game currency), emotes, horns, and clothing. Wheelspins are rewarded from progressing through the story and completing certain seasonal challenges. These can also be bought in the #Forzathon shop. Super Wheelspins, enhanced versions of Wheelspins with better prizes, are also given for completing parts of the story and seasonal challenges. Super Wheelspins can also be bought in the #Forzathon Shop. Also returning from the past two games, British drum & bass label Hospital Records provided a soundtrack composed of 20 original tracks from various label artists, as well as an unreleased track by Fred V & Grafix titled "Sunrise", made for the game's opening cinematic. The soundtrack album was released on 26 October 2018.

The game features a Dolby Atmos soundtrack.

Owing to licensing issues, vehicles from Mitsubishi Motors (including Lexus marque with the exception of some offroad racing and pre-customised trucks and Subaru BRZ) were not present in the base game, but updates released in 2019 re-introduced these brands; Mitsubishi returned on 15 January 2019 with the release of the Free Mitsubishi Motors Car Pack DLC. That same day, however, two dancing emotes ("Carlton" and "Floss") were removed from the game due to lawsuits filed by those dances' creators against Epic Games for their use of the dances as emotes in their game ''Fortnite Battle Royale''. On 19 November 2019, the official ''Forza Motorsport'' Twitter account announced that Toyota cars would be returning to the ''Forza'' series in the Series 17 update of ''Forza Horizon 4'' on 12 December with the release of the 1998 Toyota Supra RZ.

Content and gameplay updates

''Forza Horizon 4'' has seen several content expansions and updates since its release. There are two downloadable content expansions for the game. The first of these, ''Fortune Island'', was released in December 2018. It includes a new map, a range of additional cars and adds extreme weather conditions to the game, along with a treasure hunting campaign in which players find treasure chests to earn up to ten million Credits. The second, ''Lego Speed Champions'', was announced at E3 2019 and released on 13 June 2019. Similar to the ''Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels'' expansion, it is based on the Lego brand's Lego Speed Champions toyline featuring Lego toy versions of real cars, a map "built" with various Lego pieces, and its own separate campaign. It also added a new in-game radio station, Radio Awesome, which is dedicated solely to playing ''The Lego Movie'' theme song "Everything Is Awesome" by Tegan and Sara featuring The Lonely Island.

The Series 5 update in January introduced the Free DLC Mitsubishi Motors

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