Forza Motorsport's Handling Will Be A "Huge Generational Leap" For The Franchise

According to Forza Motorsport creative director Chris Esaki, the next game in the series will deliver a "huge generational leap" in terms of the foundational driving gameplay for the series.

"I'm a core gameplay guy, a core mechanics guy, and I really think about all the things that we do--the rubber meets the road and that sort of thing--as core gameplay and essentially we're building on this solid foundation of our Forza feel that our players know and love and just making it that much better," Esaki explained in the latest episode of Forza Monthly via VGC.

Esaki added that the difference in gameplay will be greater than all the changes made from Forza Motorsport 4 and though to Forza Motorsport 7. One of the bigger changes is in the tire collision model, which traditionally has only had one point of contact with the road and refreshed itself at 60Hz. For the next Forza Motorsport, there will be eight points of contact with the track that will run at 360Hz.

"So if you're doing the math there, it's a 48x fidelity jump in a single tire collision itself so there's just a huge amount of work there that has just really paid off for us," Esaki said. "This goes to all the feedback we've got from this last playtest, you can really feel the track surface a lot more, there's a lot more communication to the player and the feeling of the tires on the track is really insane."

Esaki also mentioned that curbs had been dramatically changed from the usual coarse or unsettling feeling that had been prevalent in previous games, and now feel more smooth and natural while allowing tires to feel "the undulations" in each part of the road. On the brand recognition side of the game's development, Esaki also confirmed that the next entry in the series won't feature a sequential 8 at the end of its title, and will be a new start for the series.

"It really is an all-new Forza Motorsport experience," Esaki concluded.

Little else is known about the next Forza, aside from it having recently wrapped up a beta test and has scheduled another one for this summer. If Microsoft is ready to reveal some new details on its signature racing game series though, its joint briefing with Bethesda on June 13 will be as good a place as any to show off all those handling improvements.

For more on that event and other conferences around it, don't forget to check out our E3 2021 hub for the full schedule.