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In a perfect world, all the various races you can get into across Forza Horizon 6 and its open-world rendition of Japan would be clean and smooth, bereft of hostile collisions and catastrophic wipeouts. We don't live in a perfect world, though — and one Forza opponent in particular seems hellbent on making sure you can't enjoy a race without having to worry about chaos.
That racer is none other than bowie knife99, one of the AI "drivatars" you can compete against in lieu of real players in Forza Horizon 6's various contests. Just one week after the open-world racer's launch, bowie knife99 already has a reputation in the game's community for being a notoriously violent driver, and routinely rams and crashes into players in an effort to ensure it comes out on top.
I mean, just look:
bowie knife99 just sent me back to Mexico from r/ForzaHorizon
You can find clips like this one all over social media, with most exasperated at the lengths this particular AI will go to in order to be a thorn in your side. "WHO IS HE AND WHY IS HE ALWAYS BULLYING ME," writes KnightLewis25. "Nah this is diabolical. Bro needs to be stopped," says another player.
"I had a 70,000 x 5.0 skill combo going when I got rammed by some AI driver. Who was it? BowieKnife99 of course," grumbles Different-Scarcity80.
Unsurprisingly, memes about bowie knife99 are all over the Forza Horizon subreddit and other community gathering sites right now, with players coming together to laugh at each other's run-ins with the drivatar while simultaneously cursing its murderous tendencies.
Some, though, have comically decided to make it their mission to get revenge on bowie knife99, sharing clips of themselves running it off the road, forcing it to smash into obstacles, and ramming into it with the pedal to the metal. It's a noble pursuit of justice for bowie's victims, to be sure...though, be aware that it might fight back if you find yourself getting aggressive.
Justice for all the Bowieknife victims from r/ForzaHorizon6
All in all, I find this whole ordeal hilarious, though it's also driven a lot of discussion about the difficulty of Forza Horizon 6's drivatars. Many players report that many races feel impossible to win at higher difficulty settings, even when bowie knife99 isn't there trying to spin them out.
Perhaps we'll see developer Playground Games adjust them in future patches; I think that's probably the right call to make with all the feedback players are giving right now, though I do hope the studio leaves bowie knife99's behavior just the way it is. It's been fun seeing the community band together against a common enemy, and makes me wish AI opponents had this kind of personality more often in racing games.
Forza Horizon 6 itself is enjoying a tremendous launch period right now. It had the biggest Early Access release of any entry in the series followed by a stellar launch day performance, and went on to rapidly bring in over 6 million players across Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Xbox Game Pass. Currently, it has more players on Xbox than Call of Duty does, which is quite a feat.
Have you had any run-ins with bowie knife99? How did they go? Are you enjoying Forza Horizon 6 in general? Let me know down below.
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