NASCAR has come to Forza. Turn 10 Studios and Microsoft have announced the NASCAR Expansion for Forza Motorsport 6. The DLC adds Homestead-Miami Speedway, twenty-four of the 2016 season cars, and an all-new NASCAR World Tour career. Get your NASCAR on with Joe Gibbs Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, and Team Penske. It’s available now on Xbox One for $20.
Besides the NASCAR Expansion, Forza Motorsport 6 is getting an update that adds “significant” features to the game. Proximity arrows for your HUD, rolling start options, and multiplayer being enabled for the Le Mans race route are some of the big changes that are free to all owners of the game.
Forza Motorsport is coming to Windows this spring. In a first for the Microsoft CaRPG series, a PC version of the game is being made. Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is a “curated” free experience for Windows 10. Meant to showcase the strong tie between Xbox and Windows 10, the Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios project will include 63 cars with fully modeled cockpits and damage, 20 tracks from the full game, a career mode, and challenges that will be updated on a regular basis. The game will also feature the signature “Drivatar” AI opponents and “Forzavista” showroom mode.
According to information released during a February 25th Microsoft press event, the game will launch without wheel support, and actual race multiplayer beyond score comparisons may be off the table.
Turn 10 and Microsoft has added microtransactions to Forza Motorsport 6. Players can buy in-game tokens used to unlock cars or event modifiers for the racing game with real-world money. Cars can still be unlocked through play, but the tokens offer a shortcut to better cars right away. The game did not launch with this feature, and the developer chose to bury the announcement in a community blog news roundup.
On Saturday, we’ll be activating tokens in Forza Motorsport 6, allowing players to purchase tokens which can be used for in-game items like cars and Mod packs. Players who do not wish to see the token feature in Forza Motorsport 6 menus will have the option to disable this feature from appearing by turning Tokens off in the HUD Options menu.
There’s a new twist. Microtransactions that you can block. The feature’s stealth launch and giving players the ability to turn it off in their games may be a result of Turn 10’s past experience with microtransactions. When a similar system was first revealed for Forza Motorsport 5, the community reacted negatively and the developer was forced to retool the in-game economy to make cars less expensive. The Forza Motorsport 6 token packs are available from 100 tokens for 99 cents (good for one car) to 20,000 tokens for $99.99.
Microsoft’s E3 2015 show started with their trusty headliner Halo 5 Guardians, then dropped a bomb on the audience. Microsoft is enabling backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One. According to Microsoft, over 100 titles from the last-gen library will be playable on the Xbox One by the holidays with more to come. Retail discs and digital download titles will work with this feature. No work is required from game developers. They only need to approve the compatibility and Microsoft does the wrapper work on their end. Microsoft couldn’t resist sniping at Sony’s PlayStation streaming service by pointing out that their backwards compatibility service was free for gamers to use.
A spiffy new Xbox One Elite Controller is coming this Fall. It has paddles, a rocker directional pad, and removable widgets. They must help with the shooting somehow.
On the software side, Microsoft kept to exclusives for the most part, with a few mutiplatform titles. Forza 6, now with inclement weather and night racing was previewed with Ford’s help. Rise of the Tomb Raider was QTE heaven. There were videos of Ion from Dean Hall, (of DayZ fame) Dark Souls 3, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Fable Legends, and Gigantic. Tacoma, the newest title from Gone Home makers The Fullbright Company got a quick spot in the indie segment along with Cuphead, a gorgeous side-scroller done in the style of a 1930’s cartoon. Rare has apparently been busy with a Rare Replay collection that bundles up 30 of their games in a discount package, as well as working on Sea of Thieves, a new title featuring multiplayer pirating. Gears of War returned to Microsoft’s show with the Gears of War Ultimate Edition that remasters the original Gears of War for the newer console, and Gears 4 which is apparently all about walking through pitch-black areas very slowly.
Last night at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Ford unveiled their new Ford GT sports car. At the same time, Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios announced Forza Motorsport 6 with the new Ford GT as the cover car. That’s synergy! Other than the Ford GT being on the packaging for the game, there’s not much to say at this point about the next Forza. Ford’s performance line of cars will be featured in Forza 6, including the GT, the Shelby GT350 Mustang, and the F-150 Raptor, but other than that, it’s anybody’s guess. We’ll assume there will be roads upon which you can drive, and some kind of Kinect integration that no one will ever use.
Microsoft will show off more of Forza Motorsport 6 at E3 in June.
