Forza Horizon is an open-world racing game developed by Playground Games exclusively for Xbox 360. It is the fifth installment in Forza franchise and the first game in Horizon subseries.
### Plot and setting
The game takes place in the state of Colorado during fictional Horizon Festival, a huge street-racing event. The player chooses a character and participates in different activities throughout the festival.
### Gameplay
In contrast to previous Forza titles, the game lets players explore the area of the festival at their own pace. The game, however, keeps realistic physics system from previous games. There are dozens of various racing events scattered throughout the game world including point-to-point races, drift, races against planes and many more. Besides that, the player can interact with other AI racers, challenging them to race. While exploring the map, the player can find hidden vintage cars that can later be upgraded and added to the garage.
The game incorporates a popularity system. Winning races, performing stunts, smashing particular objects, completing speed traps challenges increases the player’s popularity giving access to more difficult races.
Besides racing Forza Horizon has auto-show, which lets player sell and buy cars, tuning, cars customization and photo mode. The later allows the player to make photo shoots outside the car.
