Forza Horizon 4, which launches Oct. 2on Windows PC and Xbox One, has a demo available on both platforms today. Developers said it will give players a sampling of the four seasons of weather the game will offer.
Set in the U.K., where the weather is always lovely every season of the year, Forza Horizon 4 will also offer a James Bond-themed car pack at launch. It’s a premium pack, so it’s available for those who buy the Ultimate Edition. Everyone else will have to buy it separately.
The Best of Bond Car Pack features 10 vehicles that have graced a dozen of the 24 Bond flicks so far (including On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Living Daylights). The full list:
- 1964 Aston Martin DB5 inspired by Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, Skyfall and Spectre
- 1969 Aston Martin DBS from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
- 1974 AMC Hornet X Hatchback from The Man With the Golden Gun
- 1977 Lotus Esprit S1 from The Spy Who Loved Me
- 1981 Citroën 2CV6 from For Your Eyes Only
- 1986 Aston Martin V8 from The Living Daylights
- 1999 BMW Z8 from The World is Not Enough
- 2008 Aston Martin DBS from Quantum of Solace
- 2010 Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre
- 2015 Aston Martin DB10 from Spectre
There’s also some bonus in-game Bond content, including two outfits and some quick-chat phrases for use in multiplayer.
Turn 10 Studios and Playground Games did not say how many or what kind of cars would be available in the Forza Horizon 4 demo. The full game will have more than 450 cars in the fleet. Forza Horizon 4Ultimate Edition owners will get to play the game beginning Friday, Sept. 28. Everyone else starts Oct. 2.
![Horizon Horizon](https://www.gamepur.com/files/images/2014/forza-horizon-2/demo-1080p-screenshot-4.jpg)
THIS IS YOUR HORIZON You’re in charge of the Horizon Festival. Customize everything, hire and fire your friends, and explore Australia in over 350 of the world’s greatest cars. Make your Horizon the ultimate celebration of cars, music, and freedom of the open road. How you get there is up to you. EXPLORE AUSTRALIA, HORIZON’S LARGEST WORLD EVER Drive through the vast desert and rocky canyons of the Outback to lush, wild rainforests, and to the sandy beaches and gleaming skyscrapers of Australia's Gold Coast. CHOOSE FROM OVER 350 OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST CARS Every car is recreated with ForzaVista™ detail including full cockpit views, working lights and wipers, and new vehicle types bringing all-new driving experiences never before seen in Forza. DISCOVER NEW DRIVING GAMEPLAY Danger Sign Jumps, Convoys, and Drift Zones are just some of the exciting new driving challenges that await you. Star in thrilling Showcase events that pit you and your car against a fleet of speed boats, even a giant airship! HIRE AND FIRE FRIENDS You’re the boss. Hire your friends’ Drivatars to help you gain fans and expand your festival, and form Convoys with them to explore the world even when they’re not online. If they’re not winning you fans, fire them! CUSTOMIZE EVERYTHING Horizon Blueprint gives you the power to modify every aspect of race events, championships, and Bucket List challenges – and instantly challenge friends to beat you at your own game. Choose your driver character, create custom paint jobs and vanity license plates, add new body kits – even select your own car horn sound. DRIVE TO THE MUSIC YOU LOVE Choose from eight diverse radio stations, or create a custom station from your own music collection with Groove Music. START AN ONLINE DRIVING ADVENTURE Online 4-Player Co-op allows you and your friends to experience the variety, competition, and rewards of a Horizon campaign together for the first time. PLAY THE AUCTION HOUSE Find rare cars and incredible works of art by the most talented creators in the Forza Community. Features may vary between Xbox One and Windows 10 versions of game. Xbox One game disc for use only with Xbox One systems. Xbox Live Gold membership (sold separately) required for online multiplayer on Xbox One. Cross-device play only in Xbox Live-supported countries, see xbox.com/live/countries. Some music features may not be available in some countries. See forzamotorsport.net.
The Forza Horizon 4 demo is available now, giving eager road warriors a little bit of driving to do before the full game arrives on October 2. You don't need to sign up or pre-order or do anything special to get in - just read on to find out how you can start racing ASAP and see how it addresses three of the series' biggest issues for yourself.
What platforms is the Forza Horizon 4 demo available on?
You can download and play the Forza Horizon 4 demo on two platforms: Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. The demo includes special Xbox One X enhancements as well, in case you're rocking Microsoft's latest system. PS4 or Nintendo Switch versions are extremely unlikely because both the franchise and developer are owned by Microsoft.
How do I get the Forza Horizon 4 demo?
Just load up either the Xbox Store or Microsoft Store (depending on your platform), search for 'Forza Horizon 4 Demo' and start the download. You'll need about 28GB of open storage space to complete the download and installation.
![Forza horizon 4 pc buy Forza horizon 4 pc buy](https://newgamesrelease.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/sample-page-70.jpg)
What's included in the Forza Horizon 4 demo?
The big new open-world element for Forza Horizon 4 is shifting seasons, and you'll be able to experience all four of them in the demo. Developer Playground Games also says that you'll be able to try a 'heavy-hitting lineup of vehicles' around the recreated roads and trails of Great Britain, but didn't specify how many of the full car list or how much of the map is included.
What's the Forza Horizon 4 Demo Sweepstakes?
If you live in the US or Canada, just downloading and playing the demo on Xbox One any time from now until October 2 will automatically enter you into the Forza Horizon 4 Demo Sweepstakes. Two Grand Prize winners will get an all-expenses paid trip to drive a McLaren car on a race circuit with professional training, as well as an Xbox One X, Elite Controller, and a copy of Forza Horizon 4. Here are the full terms and conditions for the contest
Get even more into gear with our exploration of Forza Horizon 4's invincible sheep.
Forza Horizon 4 Pc Buy
Forza Horizon 4 comes out on October 2, and it looks to be pretty good. Wes spent some time with it at a recent preview event and found it to be an unexpectedly relaxing experience, with 'just-right' car physics and 'a scenic Britain so beautiful and detailed, picturesque feels both descriptive and literal.'
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Forza Horizon 4 Download Free
Ready to race? Check out our Forza Horizon 4 car list of the best cars, and guides to super wheelspins, barn finds and house locations.
If you'd like to sample that experience yourself without waiting until October—or having to pay for it—you can now do so, with some limitations, by way of the free Forza Horizon 4 demo that's now available from the Microsoft Store. The demo will offer 'a tour of beautiful, historic Britain,' Forza community manager Brian Ekberg said in an update at forzamotorsport.net, with 'a healthy heaping of open-world gameplay to enjoy.'
'Seasons change everything in Forza Horizon 4 and demo players will experience each of the four unique seasons in the demo,' Ekberg wrote. 'From the ice and snow of winter time to the blazing summer heat, each season has its own charms and challenges.'
Forza fans will also be able to get a head start on earning 'influence' by playing the demo, streaming it, or watching other people play it, on Mixer. Streamers will earn Influence for every two minutes they spend broadcasting (with bonuses for larger audiences), while viewers will be rewarded for every five minutes spent watching. Either way, Influence earned via streams can be claimed by logging into the full version of the game (when it's available) using the same Gamertag you use to watch streams, after unlocking the Mixer thread in the Horizon Life campaign.
The update also unveils the Best of Bond Car Pack as the Forza Horizon 4 'Day One Car Pack,' which includes a selection of Aston Martins and various other Bond machines plus related goodies like Bond outfits and 'quick chat' phrases. And finally, the release of the Forza Horizon 4 demo also marks the start of the Forza Horizon 4 Demo Sweepstakes, which will send two winners from the US and/or Canada on an all-expenses-paid trip to Pure McLaren, 'the official track driving programme of McLaren Automotive.' Unfortunately, that is only available through the Xbox One version of the demo. Sorry about that.
2016’s Forza Horizon 3 just so happened to be the first full-Forza title that I ever played. This came thanks to Microsoft introducing the Xbox Play Anywhere service that same year, which has since brought a variety of first-party releases simultaneously to both Windows 10 and Xbox One. That said, I was absolutely blown away by Horizon 3 and can’t thank Microsoft more for continuing with this service.
Even though I’ve been a fan of racing titles pretty much all my gaming life (since age three, and I’m now 20), no racer has ever impressed me as Horizon 3 has. Thus, the announcement of Forza Horizon 4 earlier this year had me jumping for joy. We all knew it was coming, but it was still amazing to see it in action for the first time. I was intrigued as to how the folks at Playground Games and Turn 10 would follow-up on their last masterpiece. It looks like they’ve managed to do just so.
While the demo version of Forza Horizon 4 only provides a very small sliver of content (as you’d expect from a demo), it’s been enough to convince me that the full package is going to be nothing short of amazing. The demo opens with a progressively transforming race that introduces you to Horizon 4’s special new mechanic: changing seasons. It was exhilarating to race through Playground’s gorgeous rendition of Britain throughout the four seasons.
The signature Horizon handling model has been refined, with each vehicle feeling very responsive. The change of seasons has naturally affected driving conditions, and the game is able to adapt seamlessly. Going from the brisk autumn roads in a Mclaren supercar, to snowy winter hills in a racing truck, then muddy spring backwoods in a rally car, before ending in a sizzling summer charge down the highway in the supercar once more all in a span of about five minutes… It all sounds jarring on paper, but the transition here manages to be smooth as butter. Again, this is to be expected—Playground and Turn 10 definitely know their stuff.
After that introductory race, the demo lets you try out a handful of other events during the summer season, teasing you with the incoming autumn release of the game. The included events do a good job of showing off various parts of Playground’s take on Britain. The map has a surprising amount of variety, even in a single season. It’s a pretty big contrast to the Australian Outback from Horizon 3. Horizon 4’s Britain is filled with little gravel paths that meander through the hills (and there sure are a lot of hills), acres of beautiful countrysides, lots of historical architecture, and a healthy amount of asphalt that blends nicely with the surroundings. The demo doesn’t allow you to explore the entire map, unfortunately. But the available portion has been incredibly fun to poke around, and it offers some breathtaking sights.
What stood out to me is that there seem to be far fewer obstacles that’ll kill your speed. In particular, roadside objects are often breakable. I was plowing through fences and shrubbery with ease, and seeing pieces break and fly all over was oddly satisfying. There are still a few titanium-grade trees here and there, but for the most part, Horizon 4 seems rather lenient when it comes to letting you romp around its open-world without much interruption.
But, I’ve saved my best finding for last. It’s time to talk performance. As great as Forza Horizon 3 was, it had one big problem that plagued several PC players for months: severe optimization issues. At launch, reports of framerate drops, hitches, and freezes were pouring in, even from folks with powerful rigs. It took the developers about six months to iron these issues out. Additionally, last year’s Forza Motorsport 7 also had similar performance problems—but those were fixed within a month. Things are better nowadays with Horizon 3, but it’s still a little temperamental. In my case, sometimes it works rather well, but even now it will sometimes act up with hitches and stutters. So, what about Horizon 4?
It seems that Playground Games has really learned its lesson this time around, as the game runs beautifully. I didn’t run into any of the same issues like what Horizon 3 had. In fact, the game’s system requirements are lower than that of Horizon 3, so even more folks should get a chance to play this time around. I rock a Lenovo Y700 laptop, outfitted with a Nvidia GTX 960M (4GB), Intel Core i7 6700HQ (boosts to 3.30GHz), and 8GB of RAM. Certainly no powerhouse, but Forza Horizon 4 has treated it gently using the dynamic optimization set to Medium and a resolution of 1080p. My FPS never dropped below 30. Although, while I do have the in-game limiter set, the game never seemed to obey it, so there would be moments where the framerate would get up to almost 60.
I did run into one performance-related issue, though. Sometimes, my vehicle would be moving faster than the map, so there’d be entire areas missing in front of me. This would bring my car and all AI traffic to a halt for a few brief moments. Horizon 3 had a similar issue, so it could be a bug in the Forza engine. This happened often throughout the demo, so here’s hoping they fix it in the full release.
Minor glitches aside, Horizon 4 is shaping up to be a superb racing game. It’s perhaps the best of 2018. The Crew 2 wowed me, but it does have some notable flaws. Forza Horizon 4 is oozing with that signature Playground Games x Turn 10 pedigree, so it’s definitely a force to be reckoned with. Simply put, October 2nd can’t come soon enough.
Having been introduced to video games at the age of 3 via a Nintendo 64, A.K has grown up in the culture. A fan of simulators and racers, with a soft spot for Nintendo! But, he has a great respect for the entire video game world and enjoys watching it all expand as a whole.