Playground Games isn’t new to exotic expansions, and if you remember Lego Speed Champions, you know what we mean. With Forza Horizon 5, the studio didn’t want to betray fans’ expectations, and picked Hot Wheels scale model cars as the centerpiece for its first DLC.
This additional content introduces a Hot Wheels open world “above” Forza Horizon 5’s Mexico: a surreal network of orange and blue tracks suspended above the desert sands. It all comes together as soon as you get a taste of what it means to just touch those incredibly high speeds on those incredibly heady heights.
The British developer didn’t want to just cover the setting and cars in a Hot Wheels skin, though. The setting also introduces a new gravity mechanic, which can pull you down or off the track and severely slow you down when going uphill. Stopping the car in the middle of a turn can cause you to fall down for hundreds of meters in the Mexico below, which still exists but is very limited compared to Forza Horizon 5’s – it’s mostly the place where you see the Hot Wheels ramps begin.
Consequently, it’s key that you get a good trajectory when entering a turn, sincecutting a corner means you’ll literally be able to throw your car down a turn and use its weight to score a significant speed boost. You’ll also have an icon in the middle of the screen to tell you if you’re taking advantage of gravity or fighting against it – a helpful indicator, if somewhat annoying due to the size of it.
The map hosting the new Hot Wheels open world features multiple biomes as usual in Forza Horizon, from snow to deserts, the iconic death loops, and easter eggs for fans to find. This, together with those speeds and new mechanics, makes it particularly fun to explore, with the usual “puzzle” component built around how to reach that specific billboard you need to smash.
The new setting also features huge fans to further boost your cars’ speed on straights, boosters on the ground, and waterlogged segments to make your car slip through points of the track. It’s arcade racing made even more arcade, and that is also reflected in the new free fast travel policy – you can move anywhere on the map, at any point, without spending a single cent. If you’ve already played the base game, that’s refreshing since you might want to get straight to the heart of the DLC, and that’s useful if you consider that the Hot Wheels open world can feel a little labyrinthine at times.
The original Forza Horizon 5 is a “map game,” but the Hot Wheels expansion doesn’t feature as many events to play through, and you’ll find yourself pushed to play missions instead. These Fortnite-like challenges could easily be the best the DLC has to offer – in some of them, you’ll be tasked with creating your own path to reach a set location in a set time, and that really makes you feel like you’re breaking new ground (something Microsoft games have already explored in the recent past with Sea of Thieves and Flight Simulator).
The game now features ten new iconic Hot Wheels cars, and a story completely focused on this brand’s legacy and some of the key points in its history. It’s spread across five points, which you can play right away or wait for them to pop up on your map. It often feels like in-game ads, not the best feeling in the world when you’ve just spent $19.99 to purchase the DLC, so much that the narrator throws a joke or two about that to make it feel a bit more natural. If you’re a Hot Wheels fan, you’ll enjoy the history lesson or hear the things you already know in a video game you love, otherwise it’ll inevitably feel a little awkward.
Overall, Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels is not a massive expansion, and maybe $14,99 would’ve been its ideal price tag. However, in terms of quality, creativity, and flexibility of its game design, it really shows how Forza Horizon 5 could easily create content out of anything, and still manage to keep us glued to the screen. Whether it’s a new game, or another expansion, we simply want more of that.
Written by Paolo Sirio on behalf of GLHF.
