Forza Horizon 5, the latest open-world arcade racing game from Playground Games, has received the high honours of having the largest launch day for any Xbox Game Studios title yet. At over 4.5 million players across PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S at launch, it has tripled the concurrent players of Forza Horizon 4.

Xbox head Phil Spencer took to social media to enthusiastically reveal that Forza Horizon 5 has seen over 4.5 million players during its launch on 9 November, making it the largest launch day for an Xbox game ever. Additionally, it remains the highest-rated game of the year, garnering several perfect and almost-perfect scores across the board (make sure you also read our full review here).

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A large part of Forza Horizon 5‘s launch day success has to do with its day one release on Xbox Game Pass, making it readily available to all subscribers of the service. Fans who pre-ordered Forza Horizon 5 either through the $99 Premium Edition or $50 Premium Add-Ons Bundle for Xbox Game Pass subscribers got to play the game several days earlier.

Spencer also revealed that Forza Horizon 5 tripled the number of concurrent players at launch than its predecessor Forza Horizon 4. Xbox Game Pass is undoubtedly the contributing factor to its success, and it’s interesting to see this subscription service take off with its first massive exclusive launch on day one. Xbox has promised that nearly all upcoming exclusives will release on day one via Xbox Game Pass, including this year’s equally anticipated Halo Infinite and next year’s major releases like Arkane’s Redfall and Bethesda’s Starfield.

Forza Horizon 5 is currently available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. It’s also available to all Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

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Source: Phil Spencer