Forza Horizon 5 PS5 Review – I am So Happy This Exists

It is about time that PlayStation owners got to enjoy a good racing game that wasn’t as obnoxious as Gran Turismo. Forza Horizon 5 ushers in a new age for the platform as Microsoft’s long-term racing franchise makes its way to PS5 and PS5 Pro. I have spent the past week racing through the hills of Mexico, around the plastic tracks in my Hot Wheels Death Rod and through the mud in my rally car, and I can report that the game is as magnificent as it has ever been on Xbox and PC.

Forza Horizon 5 brings with it the tried and tested recipe that has made the “Horizon” spin-offs so great. You are dropped into a large open world map and get to participate in the ongoing Horizon Festival – an insane event where cars literally defy the laws of physics across themed races and stunts.

The festival itself has always been as cringey and cheesy as possible. A huge list of dub-step music tracks, laser lights, sunglass-wearing douchebags who dab around all day in their wife-beater vests. But while the game has its fair share of cliché Americanised culture, it also brings its unrivalled gameplay that I have still struggled to find in other racing games.

As a package, Forza Horizon 5 is the complete experience. It offers the base game and all the loads of free content updates and season systems so far. It also includes both the Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure expansions. New to the game is the Horizon Realms content that comes in the form of themed races and tracks designed by the community.

I have to say that going into Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 after taking a few years’ break from the game on Xbox, the experience can be a little intimidating. There’s a lot to digest. While the game opens up the same, after a few hours, the various new systems and features can be a bit intimidating.

I am not talking so much about the racing itself but more the added content that has arrived over the past few years. This includes the Horizon Pass, Horizon Backstage, Horizon Season, Forzathon Shop, and other race content like the Super 7 and Horizon Promo.

There are also changes to the world with new creative labs that appear in certain areas. I am not complaining here; right now, the package is bigger and better than ever, but if you feel a little like “wtf is with all these menus?”, I won’t blame you – the game doesn’t ease you into this at all.

With that being said, the content makes for a good time. The car roster is huge, and driving around the map, there’s always something new to do. Just when I was getting bored of doing the same off-road race, I would stumble on a street race and completely switch up how I was playing the game.

Forza Horizon 5 does progress quite steadily. You, as the “superstar” of the festival (yes, I know it is horribly cheesy), get to dictate how the event plays out by choosing the expeditions that take place across the map. After racing through some tracks, you level up and get to choose the first expedition, which spans a certain archetype. This can be off-road, exploration, stunts, cross-country, and other themed events.

Each event then includes a handful of other races that you also need to unlock by levelling up the festival. The nice thing about this approach is that each new expedition evolves the activities that surround the area where the festival stage is placed down. So the map starts out quite bare bones and then opens up into a crammed location packed with things to load into.

The Horizon Festival events you choose are also the real highlight of the game. These are all well-orchestrated races and stunts that are planned out to take full advantage of all the over-the-top craziness that Forza Horizon 5 comes with. Be it racing a cargo plane, driving up an active volcano, or racing through the roughest hurricane-like storm the island has ever seen.

These story events are really the best way to experience how ridiculous Forza Horizon 5 can get at times. From the music to the carefully placed tracks and slow-motion shots, it is all rather wonderful and gives the game that awesome factor I love from the series.

It also goes a long way to deliver an approachable and fun game that, again, isn’t pretentious and lathed in orchestra music and soulless menus. If anything, it is the complete opposite of Gran Turismo. Where GT wants you to sip champagne and stick your nose in the air like a pompous fruitcake, Forza Horizon 5 is rough and dirty. Like the redneck rough and tough brother who will likely spend all his money on car upgrades, energy drinks, and women.

Outside of the main game, Forza Horizon 5’s DLC is a real showcase. The Rally Adventure is not my cup of tea, but it does successfully create a wholly unique experience outside of the other content. You drive across an entirely different map while being instructed over the radio on turns and terrain coming up in the distance. If you enjoy rally stuff, this is quintessentially that.

The Hot Wheels stuff, on the other hand, is where the real craziness comes in. This content takes place in its own map with tracks that loop into the sky and all over the place. It is Hot Wheels and, as such, it aims to give you the experience of racing through a life-sized Hot Wheels track. It does just that.

The DLC is incredibly fun to play through. Some missions touch on the history of the toy series while showcasing some of the best aspects of the toys. The tracks are, of course, out of this world with gravity-defying drops and loops. Not to mention you’ll reach speeds that would be impossible to get to in real life.

Everything in Forza Horizon 5 is fun to play. Racing is intuitive with cars each packing their own handling and feel to them. Difficulty settings make it all accessible too, giving you the option to lower and increase handling, braking, and auto steering if you need.

The cars’ roster is remarkable. Everything is here, and unlocking my favourite car and spending skill points to enhance its perks and currency to increase its performance was rewarding.

I played the game with both a controller and the Thrustmaster T300 GT Edition. I will have some content up on that wheel soon, but it does provide an experience unlike anything else. Force feedback from my turns gave my arms a workout, and hitting the barrier kicked my hands across the table. This is one powerful wheel, and it was a little difficult to manage at first. But I hope to share some video content on this all soon.

Forza Horizon 5 also looks superb on PS5 Pro. The game is just pure eye candy. It was already a stunner, but the PS5 Pro really brings environments to life. I was also impressed by the raytracing. One particular moment I recall was driving through a track at the bottom of the basin in the Hot Wheels DLC. The car was highly reflective, and I could see all the bright orange track pieces in the roof and bumper as I drove underneath them. It is gorgeous.

If I have to complain, I would only nitpick on the Hot Wheels DLC being gate-kept by some rather tedious and linear tasks. Unlocking new story races requires medals, but unlike the main game that gives you XP to unlock new events, these medals are obtained by doing random stuff. Some objectives forced me to search online how to unlock them because I had to race from one point to the other in a very certain way to earn the medal. I had no clue where these points were and how to reach the end.

I wish the progress was just a little streamlined and didn’t add the content with stuff I didn’t want to do. There’s so much freedom in the main game, so going into this DLC and being locked behind mindless tasks made no sense.

In the end, Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 is a must-have racer. It is that game you boot up and just get lost. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and there’s so much to see and do here. I am just extremely glad we have this game on PlayStation now so I can stop pretending to enjoy the simulation racer franchise because I had no other racing game to play.