Playground Games News Articles
Tuesday23rd May 2023
News Forza Horizon 5 Update 21 Is Huge, Featuring All-New Photo Mode Options & More
Explore the horizon
Forza Horizon 5 will move onto its Series 21 update on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC this week, and the team's 'Explore the Horizon' update is looking like one of the biggest yet. The headline feature is a re-worked photo mode that adds tons of new options for the car photography enthusiasts out there. From...
Saturday22nd Apr 2023
News Forza Horizon 5's 'High Performance' Content Update Races Onto Xbox Next Week
A new series begins
In the latest episode of Forza Monthly, Playground Games discussed the Forza Horizon 5 series update, starting next week on 25th April. As part of this, there'll be a new 'High Performance' content update, coming a few days later on 27th April. To cut to the chase, High Performance will add a "permanent race oval" to the Horizon...
Friday3rd Mar 2023
News Forza Horizon 5 'Rally Adventure' Full Open World Map Revealed
Lots of rugged rally racing
Forza Horizon 5's second expansion launch is fast approaching, with 'Rally Adventure' releasing for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC on March 29th. Ahead of the arrival of more open world racing on Xbox, the FH team has revealed the full map for DLC 2. As expected, the landscape looks to feature plenty of twisting rally...
Rumour Fable Reboot Is 'Miles Away' While Xbox Focuses On Hellblade 2 And Avowed
What will Team Xbox show off this summer?
In a recent episode of VGC's new podcast, journalist Andy Robinson spoke about Xbox's upcoming games lineup, with the hosts speculating on what may appear at the Xbox summer showcase in 2023. While the outlet hasn't heard anything specific about what's planned for the conference itself, Robinson
Wednesday1st Mar 2023
News Forza Horizon 5 Patch Delivers 'Horizon Wilds Takeover' Ahead Of Rally Adventure Update
Here are all the patch notes
Playground Games has just unveiled its upcoming Forza Horizon 5 DLC pack, 'Rally Adventure', but the team has also been hard at work delivering the game's latest Series update in the meantime. The 'Horizon Wilds Takeover' links in nicely to next month's Rally Adventure expansion, with the game's dirt racing discipline...
Monday27th Feb 2023
News Forza Horizon 5 'Rally Adventure' Full Car List & Open World Details
Get ready to rally
Late last week, Forza Horizon 5 dev Playground Games fully revealed the game's second expansion, Rally Adventure. The off-road focused affair arrives March 29th, and ahead of launch, the team has released quite a lot of information about what to expect from FH5's final major DLC pack. We'll break down the big talking points so...
Thursday23rd Feb 2023
News Forza Horizon 5 'Rally Adventure' Expansion Leaps Onto Xbox This March
The Horizon Festival is expanding!
Developer Playground Games has revealed that Forza Horizon 5's second major expansion is based on all things off-roading. The 'Rally Adventure' expansion pack launches March 29th on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. The new DLC harkens back to the early days of Forza Horizon. The first game in the series featured...
Tuesday24th Jan 2023
News Forza Horizon 5 To Honor Rally Icon Ken Block With Tribute Video & Special In-Game Content
Calls on community's photos, clips & video
2023 didn't get off to the best start in the racing community - with the loss of the legendary rally and Hoonigan driver Ken Block in a snowmobile accident. Not only was he a huge part of car culture, but he also had an impact on many video games over the years including the Forza series. Now, in honor of...
Tuesday10th Jan 2023
News Forza Horizon 5 Devs Split Off To Form New AAA Studio
"The game will be open world, it will be AAA, it will be premium"
Here's some big industry news for a random Tuesday morning in January! A chunk of the Playground Games team that developed Forza Horizon over the last few years have left the studio, forming a new "AAA" team called Maverick Games. Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown is...
Thursday5th Jan 2023
News Microsoft Reveals New Forza Horizon 5 Xbox Series X Bundle
Complete with the game and every add-on
More than a year after the open world racer's official launch, Microsoft has revealed a brand new Forza Horizon 5 bundle featuring an Xbox Series X console, the game, and every single DLC pack planned by Playground Games. The bundle will begin rolling out this week in the US, Canada, and "select" Asian...
Tuesday3rd Jan 2023
News Forza Teams Pay Respects To Legendary Rally Driver Ken Block
"You will be missed, Ken"
It is an incredibly sad day in the motorsport community, with the news the famous American rally car driver Ken Block has died in a snowmobile accident at the age of 55. Ken's influence on motorsport stretched far and wide. Apart from a successful rally career, he founded the motor racing team Hoonigan and was also a...
Friday4th Nov 2022
News Xbox's Matt Booty 'Encouraged' By Internal Showings Of Fable Reboot
"High craft, high quality, high attention to detail"
Fable is coming back to Xbox in the near future, this time with Forza Horizon developer Playground Games at the helm. Due to the team's development history, questions have often been asked by fans about whether the dev can make a successful transition from racing game to RPG. Well, in a new...
Thursday3rd Nov 2022
News Forza Horizon 5 Dev Provides Update On Expansion 2 & In-Game Ray Tracing
Shiny
During today's 'Forza Monthly' livestream, developer Playground Games has provided an update on some pretty big Forza Horizon 5 features. The first of which is Expansion 2 news; that being that FH5's second major DLC isn't coming until next year. Thankfully, we'll get an update on the expansion in the new year, where we should learn about...
Tuesday1st Nov 2022
News Deus Ex & Tomb Raider Developer Reportedly Working With Xbox On Fable
Shared playground
Fable has been deep in development by Forza Horizon dev Playground Games for some time now, and it seems Xbox has decided to draft in some extra help. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Deus Ex developer Eidos Montreal is assisting on Fable's development. Reporter Jason Schreier then followed up on Twitter, add
Tuesday11th Oct 2022
News Forza Horizon 5 Anniversary Update Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
Blast from the past
Late last week, we broke down the key new features included in Forza Horizon 5's big anniversary update, which kicks off a month-long celebration of the Forza Horizon series. The gist of it is that developer Playground is bringing a bunch of classic content to FH5 — including cars, events, tunes and more — that debuted in...
Friday7th Oct 2022
News Forza Horizon 5's Anniversary Update Is Loaded With Classic Content
Horizon origins
On the eve of the series' 10th birthday, Forza Horizon 5 is getting a massive free anniversary update to celebrate a decade of open world racing for the Forza franchise. There's a lot packed in here, from brand-new cars and Forza Horizon throwbacks, to a new Horizon story and some classic FH radio tunes. Here's a look at the...
Friday30th Sep 2022
News Forza Dev Confirms Horizon 4 Won't Be Delisted Anytime Soon
"No need to worry"
A Forza series community manager has squashed concerns over Forza Horizon 4 potentially being delisted in the coming months. In a Forza forum thread discussing Horizon 4's 'end of life' status, community manager T10ManteoMax (as their forum name goes) had this to say about the future of Playground's fourth Forza Horizon game:...
Saturday3rd Sep 2022
News Xbox's Matt Booty Is 'Excited' To Show The New Fable Game
But can't until Playground Games is ready...
One upcoming first-party Xbox title that's got many people excited is the new Fable game by the Forza Horizon developer Playground Games. There have been some minor development updates over the past few months, but what's the latest? In a special storytime session at this year's PAX, Head of Xbox Game...
Saturday20th Aug 2022
Pick One What's The Best Racing Series In Xbox History?
C'mon, it's PGR!
Right, after our recent rant about Forza Horizon's current direction and the greatness of the PGR series, we started to think about some of the most popular racing series' on Xbox, past and present. Forza, as a whole, has been a platform mainstay for years now and is absolutely one of the best racers out there when you look at the...
Monday1st Aug 2022
News Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels Hits 1 Million Players In Under 2 Weeks
Speedy progress
Last month, Forza Horizon 5's first expansion in the form of Hot Wheels finally arrived, marking Forza's second crossover with the iconic franchise. In a little under two weeks since that launch, the DLC has already surpassed one million players worldwide, which is quite a feat! The stat comes from the DLC's in-game 'Hall of Fame'...
Wednesday20th Jul 2022
News Forza Horizon 5 Series 10 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
Download it now
Playground Games' Hot Wheels expansion for Forza Horizon 5 is now live and it means Series 10 of the game is available as well. Included in this latest update are a bunch of new features as well as some major game fixes. We've got the full rundown courtesy of Forza support's social channel and the official web page: Forza Horizon...
Tuesday19th Jul 2022
News Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels Launches Today, Discounted For Xbox Game Pass Members
Expansion 1 is upon us
As Dusk Falls has been getting a lot of attention in the run up to its launch later today, July 19th, but we shouldn't forget that Forza Horizon 5's first expansion is also dropping on this way-too-hot British Tuesday in mid-July... Yep, Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels goes live later today, bringing a whole new...
Wednesday13th Jul 2022
News Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels: Full List Of Xbox Achievements Revealed
Achievements for the base game & expansion
Ahead of the July 19th release of the Hot Wheels expansion for Forza Horizon 5, Playground Games has revealed the Xbox and Steam exclusive achievements coming in the Series 10 Update. All up, there'll be a total of 28 achievements to unlock for a total Gamerscore of 500. Here's the list, courtesy of the...
Sunday10th Jul 2022
News Control Writer Becomes Fable's New Narrative Lead
"Some exciting news to end the week"
There's been a lot of movement within the walls of Playground Games, and the latest development comes from Anna Megill - a writer known for games like Control and Dishonored, who joined Playground Games as a lead writer in 2020. In a new update, Megill has now taken charge as the narrative lead of the new Fable...
Sunday3rd Jul 2022
News Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels Is Now Live For Pre-Order
It releases in just over two weeks!
We're getting pretty darn close to Forza Horizon 5's first expansion, as the series returns to the Hot Wheels well later this month. Ahead of DLC 1's July 19th launch, the Xbox Store page is now live with a little more info about the add-on, and the ability to place a pre-order. Here's the new developer...
Wednesday22nd Jun 2022
News Major Forza Horizon 5 Update Adds Co-Op To Horizon Stories, New Hot Wheels Content
Series 9 is here
A pretty big Forza Horizon 5 update just dropped yesterday, June 21st (roughly 16GB on our end) ahead of the Hot Wheels DLC launch next month. While this sizeable patch could well contain some of that Hot Wheels expansion content tucked in there, it also brings a bunch of new features to the main game, for the here and now...
Tuesday14th Jun 2022
News Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels Extended Gameplay Revealed
Gotta go fast
Playground Games has treated us to some more footage of Forza Horizon 5's Hot Wheels expansion, showcasing the DLC's diverse biomes and expansive track layouts. This might be a bit of a repeat of the Forza Horizon 3 DLC of the same name, but that doesn't mean it looks any less fun. The brief demo also touched on the nature of the Hot...
News Project Gotham Racing's Failed Reboot Helped Create Forza Horizon
Project pain
Alright, we're absolutely huge PGR fans here at Pure Xbox (maybe some more than others!) so you can only imagine our collective sigh when this morning, we heard that a Project Gotham Racing reboot attempt failed at Xbox, back in the 360 era. Bummer! In a new interview with GQ Magazine, the outlet sat down with multiple members of the...
Monday13th Jun 2022
News Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels DLC Is Packed With 4 'New Biomes' & Over 200KM Of Track
This one looks STACKED
At the big Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, Forza Horizon 5 developer Playground Games finally unveiled the game's much anticipated first expansion. We're returning to the world of Hot Wheels, much like Forza Horizon 3's 2nd DLC pack. However, this isn't going to be a simple rehash, as FH5: Hot Wheels is massively upping...
Sunday12th Jun 2022
News Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels Expansion Launches This July On Xbox
Loop de loop
Finally, news on Forza Horizon 5 DLC! Well, the leaks were true, Playground Games is returning to the Hot Wheels well next month, with the launch of Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels on July 19th. In terms of what to expect, it looks rather similar for the Forza Horizon 3 DLC of the same name to be honest. Sure, it'll be bigger and broader...
