In Forza Horizon 4, Seasons change everything where players must master driving in dry, wet, muddy, snowy and icy conditions. A first for the racing genre and rarely seen in any open-world game, dynamic seasons create a world that is constantly evolving each week and with more than 450 cars, novices and veterans alike can explore the beautiful open world of Britain filled with unique and challenging driving experiences.
While Forza Horizon 4’s deep upgrade system can optimize any car for any season, it’s always best to think about the right car choice for each weather condition, whether you need to adjust your suspension and how you need to change your driving style depending on the terrain. Luckily, we have some tips and tricks on how best to tackle each season and what to expect, sourced by Turn 10 Studios’ Design Director Jon Knoles.
Summer
Under a high, mid-day summer sun, conditions are perfect for putting the pedal to the metal on Britain’s fastest motorways or ripping along the golden sands of the northern coast past the brooding Bamburgh Castle. You may encounter the occasional summer rain, but most of the time you’ll find dry weather.
If you take a shortcut through fields, you’ll easily plow through tall grasses and flowers. Don’t worry about wood and wire fences, small trees, or stacked drystone walls. Whatever you’re driving, if you’re going fast enough they’ll break without breaking your car. Smaller, lighter cars will slow down considerably more than larger, heavier vehicles when you plow through these obstacles.
When Horizon summer arrives, as with all seasons, keep an eye out for seasonal gameplay events, challenges, and rewards, which expire at the end of the season. You may find summer events often take advantage of the perfect driving conditions to feature faster cars on faster, paved roads.
Autumn
Whether you call it autumn or fall, it’s perhaps the most beautiful and most colorful season to explore the tree-lined, winding roads of Britain’s Lake Country in the world’s greatest road cars, or to tackle the 4×4 Adventure Park’s muddy playground for off-roaders.
It’s after harvest, so fields that were full of tall grasses in summer are now plowed and full of soft or muddy earth that will slow you down a bit, and are peppered with new obstacles in the form of big and heavy bales of hay, which will definitely slow you down if you hit them. It will rain in autumn more than in summer and roads do become a bit slicker in the wet, so you’ll be wanting to plan a little earlier for hard turns.
When autumn arrives, keep an eye out for a seasonal barn find car—each season reveals a classic to discover and restore, but you’ll want to find it before the season changes again.
Winter
With the low sun shimmering through bare trees across a frosty landscape, you might be worried that you’ll be sliding all over the place. Don’t worry, all tires are good for all seasons, and will be enough to keep you on the roads if you remember to brake—and turn—for curves. If you want more grip on the snow and ice, you can equip your car with studded winter tires in the upgrade shop, and any car that was already equipped with off-road or rally tires will automatically switch to studded tires.
The weather may range from clear to light flurries, or the occasional blizzard. Higher elevations in the north will have more deep snow than lowland areas in the south. Coastal beaches are still sandy, and motorways, the city streets of historic Edinburgh, and other major roads are cleared of ice and snow. In winter, you can reach previously inaccessible areas to search for bonus boards to smash or barn find cars, such as on an island in the middle of a deep lake. And when you’re on the frozen lake, it doesn’t matter what you’re driving or what kind of tires you have, you will slide around a lot, which itself is a lot of fun.
Keep an eye out for snowmen, too. Smashing them is fun, and it will net you combo skill points. Seasonal events are sure to test your mettle on the slippery ice, but rest assured there are still clear roads to conquer.
Spring
After a cold winter, the British landscape bursts to life once again in vibrant color, and one thing you can be sure of is a lot more rain, but you’ll also get a lot of sun. Or as they say in much of Britain in the spring, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes.”
Of all the seasons, spring is probably the one with the most varied conditions throughout. Previously dry or shallow riverbeds become deep, rushing streams, which may bring low-slung supercars and lightweight cars to a crawl, but don’t pose much of a challenge for off-road vehicles such as SUVs, trophy trucks, and buggies. If you happen to climb to a mountain peak in the north, you’ll still find pockets of snow to play around in.
As with autumn, spring events may bring a more rally-heavy theme with mixed-surface races to suit the varied conditions. Whether it’s in a sturdy new Subaru WRX Sti, or a classic Group B rally monster from the 80s, you’ll be sure to discover some trail-blazing events in cars built to tackle all the tarmac, gravel, and mud that you’ll get plenty of in spring.
Forza Horizon 4 launches on October 2, 2018 on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Xbox Game Pass, and is now available for pre-order in the Microsoft Store. Stay tuned to Xbox Wire and ForzaMotorsport.net for future updates.
