Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure – a disappointing rally

We had many questions about the original Forza Horizon 5, and a little more to Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels, but with the release of the new Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure DLC, we’re left with just one question. Is this a joke?

The rally everyone was waiting for

In Forza Horizon 5, from the very beginning, rally racing was not perfect. Most of the races that were supposed to be dirt races actually turned out to be 50% asphalt races, which the game was already full of. At the same time, it cannot be said that there was no place for rally races on the Mexican map. There was, and even more than enough, but at the same time Playground Games for some reason was unable to create interesting off-road races.

The players themselves began to correct the situation, creating sometimes very interesting, very long (15, 20, and even 30 minutes), and very intense custom races. But thanks to Forza Horizon 5’s “very user-friendly” interface, finding them among tons of junk wasn’t very easy. Players exchanged codes for interesting tracks on the game’s forums and on Reddit.

When Playground Games announced the addition of Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure, everyone rejoiced: it seemed that we would finally get the long-awaited rallies. But it did not happen as expected.

The rallies we received

As is usually the case with DLC for games in the Forza Horizon series, we got a separate region – Sierra Nueva. A location… that seems to have been hastily assembled from elements of the main map of Forza Horizon 5. Yes, there are some interesting places here, for example, a winding canyon or a meteorite crater, but… their potential is completely underdeveloped in our opinion. Sierra Nueva turned out to be an easily forgettable location. There is absolutely nothing here that you will remember after you leave this map.

Okay, let it be a location assembled from old assets, it’s not terrible, but the problem is that it is very, VERY small. It seems that half of the map can be covered with one good jump from the springboard. And this is actually a big problem.

The thing is, there is very little content in Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure. There is simply nowhere to expand on such a map. Most rally races here last three minutes, and sometimes there are races even less than two minutes. It’s… we don’t even know how to say it, it’s some kind of bullying. Yes, in the main part of Forza Horizon 5, most races last 3-4 minutes, but not 1:45 – 1:50. We have to wait again for modders who construct really interesting and long custom tracks.

In general, there is a total lack of content in Rally Adventure. There is simply VERY little of it here. All the races in Sierra Nueva, and there are only 28 races, can be completed… in 5 hours, i.e. in one evening. The developers offer to go through each of the routes in two modes and spend some time completing various additional tasks and collecting collectibles. But these are additional activities and even they are few here.

After finishing all the rally races and getting all the bonus cars, which are actually very few and not much different from the models already present in the main part of Forza Horizon 5, you will hardly want to return to Sierra Nueva, except for seasonal tasks.

A spoonful of honey

As for the races themselves, if you ignore their duration, Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure really offers a rally experience.

First, the game immediately offers to turn off traditional help in the form of a perfect racing trajectory and turn on a real rally navigator, that will warn you about the next turn, obstacles, jumps, etc. with a voice and, of course, marks at the top of the screen. It’s really like a rally, although, let’s be honest, if you turn on the traditional assistance and go through the turns not in a drift, but cleanly, you will most likely show a better time.

Secondly, there are almost no straight roads in the Sierra Nueva, but there are a lot of steep turns. There is simply nowhere for a powerful car to accelerate here, so S2 and X category cars feel very uncomfortable here, like an elephant in a china shop. Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels, on the other hand, did not allow category D cars at all.

It would seem that with such roads you can create really interesting races, but Playground Games failed again, the rally races turned out to be uninteresting. In addition, it seems that the AI opponents are not good at rallying at all, even at the highest difficulty level, when the AI starts to read, it is not interesting to compete with them. Let me remind you, we have almost a real rally here, that is, a separate start.

What else is good about the new DLC? The launch control system was so lacking in the game. Now you will not be bypassed as standing in the first meters of the race. Antilag for turbocharged engines for all cars that can be fitted with such engines. New Epitaph radio station. Rally spare parts and new modification kits and body kits.

Bugs

Unfortunately, we are not talking about cars for racing on the sand, but about software bugs. It would seem that in the game, which was released more than a year and a half ago, it would be possible to find all the mistakes, but no. And it seems that with each update, Playground Games programmers diligently add new glitches to the game.

Falling through the ground; strange drops and freezes of the game; collectible items that can be driven through; races that do not start; unclaimed achievements, and in Forza Horizon 5 this means unclaimed cars; store errors, and so on. The list is really long, for a not so new game. And my favorite is the random disappearance of cars from the garage. You had some rare car for $143 million, came back to the game a month later… and it’s gone.

It would be all right, but the gacha mechanics is one of the cornerstones of Forza Horizon 5. Collecting them all, and currently we are talking about 691 cars, is the dream of every Forza Horizon player. So when rare cars simply dissolve into thin air, it’s frustrating to say the least. Especially if we are talking about cars that cannot be obtained in any other way, but only by completing achievements or seasonal events. That is, if such a car disappeared from your garage, you will never get it again.

As a separate glitch, we will add a helicopter in rally races. It not only muffles any other sounds in the game, even the powerful engines of class S1 cars but also trivially prevents you from seeing the next turn. This is some sabotage!

False start

Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure, which has a price tag of 399 UAH, does not look like a full-fledged addition. The maximum it’s worth is a free game update. Let’s be honest, this is the worst DLC for Forza Horizon games in 5 years. Total disappointment. It is for a reason that Rally Adventure’s rating on Steam is an “impressive” 29/100.

But Forza Horizon 5 is still the best arcade racing game we’ve had. So, despite such a fail, we will continue to play FH5, hoping that the authors will add interesting content and fix bugs in the next patches. Dear Playground Games, it’s time to wake up.