Playground Games" Forza Horizon 4 released earlier this month and there have already been a couple of bug fixing patches. However, today"s update brings along a couple of brand new features to the over two million player strong driving game while also squashing quite a number of bugs.
The biggest new feature is the Route Creator. As evident by its name, this is a new custom race designer that will let players draw out courses and place checkpoints while driving with total freedom. The races can be "Asphalt, Dirt or Cross-Country" events and up to 40 miles long. It doesn"t look like creating custom street races will be possible just yet.
A new Horizon Story is also being implemented with a focus on British cars. The British Racing Green Horizon Story will be accessible to those over level 50, and completing it will reward players with a "new quick chat phrase, a new unique clothing item, and the classic Bentley 8 Litre."
Here are the bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements that Playground Games have stuffed in the update for the two Microsoft platforms:
Cross-Platform Fixes
- General stability and performance improvements.
- Multiple engine audio improvements based on community feedback.
- Added quit option in Quickplay Team Adventure after finishing an Adventure.
- Improvements to Force Feedback understeer effect
- Fix for progress loss on Forzathon Challenges.
- Fix for rewards not being awarded in Seasonal Championships and Trial events.
- Fix for blurring on the edges of a moving target car in Photo Mode.
- Fix to avoid early completion of Trial events and allow all events to be finished.
- Fix for VIP House reward exploit.
- Fix for reset system not placing the car correctly when changing season after an event.
- Improvements to free-roam Drivatar behaviour, when driving round tight corners
- Fix for calculation of team score in Horizon Stories Co-op sessions during time-based challenges.
- Fix for Forzathon Weekly Bonus not updating correctly in the UI.
- Fix for HDR brightness calibration screen.
- Fix for traffic cars not spawning sometimes after a Barn Find cinematic.
- Fix for displayed value of VIP house when VIP owned, but house not purchased.
- Fix for rotating wheels when car is stationary in Pause Menu, ForzaVista and Drone Mode.
PC Fixes
- Fix for video options being lost when tweaking AMD GPU clock speeds.
- Increased quality of grass and tree procedurals at distance when Procedural Quality setting is set to Extreme.
- Fix for "low streaming bandwidth" message on high spec PCs when GPU-limited.
- Fix for crash when changing audio devices whilst a video is playing.
The update will be available sometime later today for both the Xbox One family of consoles and Windows 10 PCs.
Forza Horizon 4 is available to purchase via the Microsoft Store for $59.99 as an Xbox Play Anywhere game. Xbox Game Pass members also gain complete access to the driving title while being subscribed. Moreover, to have a look at what Neowin"s Usama Jawad thought of the game in his review, head over here.