The Forza Horizon 4 press briefings at Gamescom were delivered with the game running on PC, and that gave us the first glimpse of the title running on Windows 10.
When Forza Horizon 3 released, Microsoft was in the early days of Xbox Play Anywhere and it was one of the flagship titles to support the buy-once, play-across-platforms system. But it wasn't without a few flaws, and two years later Forza Horizon 4 is about to drop again on PC at the same time as Xbox One, and Playground Games is expecting things to be much improved.
Buckle up for Forza Horizon 4 on PC
For starters, the recommended system requirements are built around a 60 frames-per-second (FPS) experience. The game is perfectly playable at 30 FPS, as it has been on Xbox One forever, but 60 is the magic number, especially for PC players. Xbox One X will also get a 60 FPS mode, but unlike PC, it won't be playable at 4K at this frame rate.
The system requirements haven't yet been made available, but I was told during the briefing to expect them soon. There's also a much-requested benchmark mode in Forza Horizon 4 to test your system with.
Forza Horizon 4 will take advantage of the PC in a number of ways specific to this version. For example, players can expect support for ultrawide monitors, a configurable field of view, and more granular settings for getting the game to look and behave exactly how you want it to.
Of course, it looks stunning and even compared to an Xbox One X, the PC players will easily get the best visual treatment. HDR support is there for those with such a monitor, your ears are treated to Dolby Atmos, and in some of the graphics settings, there will be an "extreme" option that goes beyond the preset ultra settings.
I didn't get to spend much time with it but even though it was a structured press briefing, things look promising. We're around a month away from the planned launch, and given past Forza Horizon releases the chances are pretty high the game is about finished. What's clear this year is that with Forza Horizon 4, the PC users are being taken more seriously, which benefits not only Microsoft but the players.
Forza Horizon 4 is set to launch for everyone on October 2, with a four-day early access period beginning September 28 for Ultimate Edition buyers. It's available for preorder now for $60.
