Turn 10 studios has released another video bringing us behind the scenes of its upcoming extension to the Forza Motorsport franchise, Forza Horizon. Hitting store shelves on October 23, Forza Horizon leaves the race tracks behind by putting players in an open-world environment that's modeled after Colorado. How did Colorado get the nod? As the video explains, it was one of 30 real-world locations being considered, but its combinations of excellent driving roads and breathtaking scenery made it the obvious choice.
Game developers took trips to the Centennial State and returned with hundreds of hours of video and over 50,000 images from which to build their own version. What they built is a fictionalized version of Colorado assembled from all of its best parts: plains, canyons, lakes, forests, mountains, red rock formations, towns and, of course, the Horizon festival around which the entire game is based.
According to Turn 10, you'll be able to drive the same cars from Forza Motorsport 4 in Forza Horizon, and your game world will be populated with AI cars and other real players driving their own cars via Xbox Live. Challenging them to a race is as simple as pulling up alongside their car and hitting the X button. You both take off and follow a course that the game creates dynamically in real time.
The coolest new feature talked about in the video is barn finds. There are apparently historic cars hidden in barns throughout the Horizon world. When you find one, you can have it restored to running order and use it as your own ride. Check out how it works in the video below.
Lastly, Turn 10 has announced that a Season Pass for the game will cost you $50 (or 4,000 Microsoft Points) and get you the "Forza Horizon" Expansion pack, six game-car packs with six vehicles each, as well as five exclusive season-pass vehicles and the launch-day pack.
