FH5, Second anniversary

As the game enters the terrible twos…

I’m surprised we didn’t get something to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of FH5, and the date rather passed me by.

Two years on and I’m disconnected in free roam over 99% of the time. I see there’s another HA as a daily. The last time we had and HA, it took three days (?) before I had a brief window of opportunity in which to complete it. Mostly it takes several attempts to connect to the Eliminator, the Trial, and Horizon Open/Tour (although today I managed this feat first time).

Two years on and I’ve only just reached prestige 6 (in FH4, which I don’t play for such sustained periods, I think I’m already halfway to prestige 8).

Although the range of cars is vast, I feel there are far too many of them, leading to neglect (I’ve briefly driven the F8 Tributo, but have done nothing else with it) or confusion in that a seasonal demands a certain sort of car, I look at the range of available models and shrug because I don’t know which one the game really wants us to use (e.g. the Hummer EVs appear to have been the correct answer for Stop, Hummer Time).

The new sprint races were welcome, but as I’ve already said, what about some circuit races? Or the Falcon Speedway redivivus?

I don’t expect the drivatars will ever get fixed, but their frustrating, annoying and infuriating behaviour has put me off the game so much that I’ve spent entire weeks doing the Festival playlist and then no more than the dailies.

FH6? I don’t know. I suspect that I’ll succumb, but finding it little different from the preceding two games, feel even less engaged with it. I don’t expect that it’ll turn up earlier than sometime next year, but think 2025 more likely. However, the YouTubers all seem to forget that PGG and T10 probably worked in tandem with the new engine. In other words, the new game might turn up sooner (but probably undercooked like Motorsport). I’d assume that PGG aren’t having to convert the new game engine to Horizon spec.

If PGG turn up claiming that FH6 has been built from the ground up, I’ll give a snort of derision. Ermz’ review of Motorsport on YouTube sounded like a review of FM7 as if nothing had changed at all. And given what I hear about the current state of Motorsport, I won’t be surprised if FH6 is a hideous bugfest just as FH5 was – if not worse. I did think that I ought to have delayed my acquisition of FH5 by a year to let the dust settle, but it still clouds of dust infect the game.

But in truth, there’s no effective alternative to FH5. I stopped bothering with NFS games years ago and feel no inclination to revisit them – too arcadey. Not interested in The Crew. TDU Solar Crown seems to have sunk without a trace (or has it never been released?) I’d probably play a good deal more ACC if I had the space for a basic sim rig, but setting up my wheel is a nuisance.

I need a racing game with a sim-like feel to it which is accessible on a keyboard and Horizon 5 is it. In spite of all of its flaws and issues, it’s still playable, but if someone made a game which was Horizon 5 meets ACC (real-world circuits) and it could be played comfortably on a keyboard, I’d be first in that queue. Also, it’d be devoid of all the childish elements of the Horizon series.