Forza Horizon 5, the new iteration of Playground Games' open world racing series, is off to a fantastic start. A few hours ago, Microsoft's Head of Gaming Phil Spencer proudly boasted on Twitter that the game already broke the 4.5 million players milestone, which also marks the largest launch day yet for an Xbox Game Studios title. The concurrent player peak is reportedly three times as high as that of Forza Horizon 4, too.
We've invested for years in Xbox so more people can play. With 4.5+ million players so far across PC, cloud & console, Forza Horizon 5 shows that promise coming to life. Largest launch day for XGS game, peak concurrent 3x FH4 high. Thank you players & congrats to @WeArePlayground
On Steam, Forza Horizon 5 only managed to hit a peak of 70K concurrent players so far, but the lion's share of the player base is clearly within the Xbox ecosystem through Game Pass, available on console, PC, and cloud. It's not just fans who are going crazy about Playground's latest work, either, as Forza Horizon 5 is currently the highest-rated new release of the year on Metacritic, sitting at an average score of 91 out of 100 for PC and 92 out of 100 for Xbox Series X.
Our own Chris Wray rated it 9.5 out of 10 in Wccftech's review.
Forza Horizon 5 is yet another step up for the series and arguably the best racing game ever made. Offering a host of content across a fantastic representation of Mexico, its varied terrain and scenery, there's so much to explore and race. A massive roster of cars will perform all of these, each feeling different from the others, with a variety of upgrade and tuning options almost matching those of simulation titles. While there are a few minor niggles here and there, they are nearly so small as to be hardly worth mentioning. All in all, it's impossible not to recommend this for anybody, regardless of them being a fan of racing games or not, as this is that good.
Last but not least, Forza Horizon 5 has received heaps of praise for its accessibility options. These dedicated features, designed specifically with the help of the disability community, include American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) support for cinematics; a game speed modification setting that allows gamers to play at a reduced rate; customizable subtitle options; High Contrast mode; Color Blindness mode; and text-to-speech and speech-to-text options.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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