Forza Horizon 3 is a 2016 racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One and Windows. It is the ninth instalment in the Forza series and the third instalment in the Forza Horizon sub-series. The game is set in a fictionalised Australia, where the player is the leader of the titular Horizon car festival and has to expand the festival by completing events to earn fans. Like previous Forza Horizon games, it features an open world environment where players can freely roam the map. Forza Horizon 3 began development in 2014 after the release of Forza Horizon 2. Turn 10 Studios assisted with the game's development, as they did with other Forza Horizon games. Over the course of development, Playground Games tested different technological concepts for the game, while also trying to improve more features over the previous title. The Australian setting was chosen for its variety of regions, and a team was sent to Australia to conduct research for the game.
Forza Horizon 3 was released in September 2016.[a] At release, critics praised the map design, graphics, and amount of content, while most criticism was directed towards the monotony of races. The game won and was nominated for multiple awards and sold over 2.5 million copies in 2017. Downloadable content had also been released periodically, including two expansion packs. The game was followed by Forza Horizon 4, released in 2018. Forza Horizon 3 is a racing video game set in an open world environment based in a fictional representation of Australia.[1] The gameplay world is about twice the size of Forza Horizon 2,[2] and the game contains locales and regions based upon their real-life Australian counterparts.[3][4] While previous Forza Horizon games have depicted the player as being one of the racers of the Horizon Festival, the player is now the director of the festival, and their role is to expand it throughout Australia by completing races, challenges, and stunts to earn fans.[2][5] If enough fans are earned at a certain threshold, the player can set up new festival locations and unlock more events.[6]
Three types of racing modes are available in the game: Exhibition, Championship, and Rivals. Exhibition is a single race at one location, whereas Championship contains multiple races dispersed throughout the gameplay world. Rivals is a versus race against the player and an AI opponent, where the player has to compete in a time trial to beat the time set by the opponent.[7] Added in Forza Horizon 2, the player can also participate in Bucket List Challenges, where they are given a task to complete with a specific vehicle.[8] The newly introduced Horizon Blueprint feature lets the player customise races and Bucket List Challenges.[2]
Apart from races and Bucket List Challenges, the player can engage in several other activities. Breakable boards called "bonus boards" can be discovered around the gameplay world, and when driven over, they award the player with experience points or a discount on fast travelling.[8][9] As the player progresses through the game, they can receive rumours of barn finds to uncover and restore.[10] When performing stunts with a vehicle, the player is awarded "skill points". If enough skill points are acquired, they can be used to purchase perks that may award cars, experience points, in-game currency, and driving advantages, among other benefits.[5][11] The player may participate in Forzathon competitions, which provide weekly challenges and give awards once completed.[12]
Returning from previous Forza games, Forza Horizon 3 features a vehicle AI called Drivatars, which learns and mimics the driving abilities of Forza players.[13] Drivatars are found throughout the gameplay world,[14] and they appear in races as opponents, where they can be adjusted by game difficulty via the player.[8] Apart from standard races, Drivatars can be challenged to a head-to-head race. If the player wins the race, they will be able to recruit that Drivatar onto their racing team,[14] which allows the player to earn additional experience points, fans, and in-game currency.[5] The player can also recruit Drivatars in a car convoy. When in a car convoy, Drivatars will follow the player, and they can be upgraded by skill points to perform certain tasks throughout the game.[15]
The player can upgrade and tune individual parts of their vehicles, with body kits being available as well.[16][17] Additionally, the game includes a vehicle cutsomisation option called "Upgrade Heroes", which utilises both tuning and body kits to alter both a vehicle's performance and appearance, although the cutomisation preset is limited to a certain number of vehicles.[18] The colour of vehicles and their collective parts can be changed, and the player can also design liveries for vehicles.[16] These liveries can be sold through the in-game shop, which further includes an auction system to bid on cars from other players.[2][19] A total of 350 vehicles were available at the game's launch.[2]
Forza Horizon 3 offers open world multiplayer modes including an online cooperative mode for up to four players and a competitive mode for up to twelve, where players can compete in races and minigames with their vehicles.[5][15] As from previous Forza games, the player can join clubs, where they have the ability to compete against players of other clubs in races and minigames.[15]
Due to the licensing issues, vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen are absent from the game.
