Me? I’m not much of a car guy, but the excitement around yesterday’s Forza Horizon 2 announcement definitely made me wish I was. And today? We’re graced with a few screenshots that also do a mighty fine job of echoing that wish. To view them in near-full resolution, simply click the thumbnail. Or, if you’re someone who would rather see them in their full resolution glory, or use them as a desktop wallpaper, you can download them here.
Aside from the general excitement generated from the announcement of this next Forza installment, there were some who were slightly disappointed by the fact that this will be a cross-generation title, as it’s coming to both the Xbox One and the Xbox 360. Well fret not my lovelies, for the Xbox One version shall in no way be affected by the release on its little brother, as there is a completely different (and currently unnamed) developer working on that version.
If it’s any consolation, this is an almost identical approach to the way that Respawn approached Titanfall when it launched for the Xbox 360.
In addition to the screenshots, the Creative Director, Ralph Fulton, and Art Director, Ben Penrose, have explained how the game uses fully dynamic lighting to make the world shine.
“We believe next gen beauty isn’t about poly counts. It’s not about texture resolution. Those are last-gen concepts. Next-gen beauty is about light.”
“Our challenge in this game was really to make that dynamic. To make those systems work and combine in a vast world at any time of day, and in any atmospheric or weather condition. We also had to make that scale. We have a huge world which we need to fill with light. Light from headlights, light from streetlights.”
“With Horizon we pushed dynamic lights with the headlights. Now every single light in a scene is dynamic, which is only something we’ve been able to achieve with the switch to a next-gen platform.”
“The headlights themselves are no longer just standard dynamic lights; they’ve actually got modelled aberration and chromatic aberration from a proper headlight, which is why when drive around the scene and you see the headlights reacting to certain objects you’ll see a slight rainbowing on the edge. That’s all down to that particular part of the system.”
Another very important addition to Forza Horizon 2 is undoubtedly the fact that you can just wander off the road, if you want to, thanks to a driveable area which is estimated to be around three times larger than that in the first Horizon installment.
“We’ve taken the view that, if there isn’t a barrier in the real-world, if there isn’t a wall, there shouldn’t be one in our game. We want the player to be able to drive wherever he can in the real world.”
“So that means that not only is the world of Forza Horizon 2 bigger than the one in Horizon, it also has three times more driveable area; a three-times bigger play space. Which means that you’re no longer constrained to the road. You can take the road, or you can hoon off it, through a fence. Through a vineyard. Through a deep forest or up a hill. Suddenly we’re really realising that sense of freedom that people feel is so important to Horizon.”
Worried about play-time? They took care of that too, conservatively estimating that it will take you at least 100 hours to complete everything.
“We have far more content than we’ve ever had before. More than 700 events across the world, contributing to, I think a conservative 100 percent completion time of well over 100 hours. We have absolutely packed this game with racing, with non-racing, with discovery, and the ability to just point your car in any direction and just explore. So that’s freedom”
Forza Horizon was the only Forza game that I ever got in to, even though I only played it at friends houses, but the sequel is appearing to be something I could very much get behind! Gameplay won’t be teased until later this Friday, but until then, I’m just gonna enjoy staring at those tail-lights.
[via, IGN]
