Horizon Chase 2 Review (Xbox Series X|S)

After a short period of time on other platforms including Nintendo Switch, the sequel to 2018's fantastic Horizon Chase Turbo is finally coming to Xbox. Yep, Horizon Chase 2 is almost here, and we've been well up for this one ever since it was announced for the platform. The good news is that this high-speed sequel largely delivers on exactly what you'd want from a Horizon Chase follow-up, even if this second lap can feel a little threadbare at times.

If you never played the first game and happened to just stumble upon this sequel, Horizon Chase is a bit of a love letter to old school arcade racing. Think SEGA's classic Outrun series or Kemco's retro SNES racer Top Gear with a modern touch, and you're about there. Everything moves at breakneck speeds in this arcade racing series and you're tasked with almost 'guiding' the car around the circuit rather than fully controlling its every mechanical move.

You'll get to grips with the old school driving style pretty quickly though, and the bulk of Horizon Chase 2 is played out through the game's 'World Tour' mode - which follows the same basic format as the last game. You'll be jetting off to various postcard-worthy locales from around the globe - starting out in the USA before blasting through six nations in total and wrapping things up in Japan. Although a stereotypical snapshot of each location, all six regions manage to feel unique in their presentation, and there was never a dull moment as we whizzed through Horizon Chase 2's World Tour.

In this second game, the visual style is perhaps a bit more 'modern' than its predecessor, mind you. We're not saying Horizon Chase 2 is going to rival Forza Horizon 5's presentation or anything, but the graphics have a more modern animated look than Chase Turbo, which felt much more like a clean version of retro game styling. That might put some purists off, but we really like the way Horizon Chase 2 looks in motion, and the more modern presentation style is paired with denser backgrounds to create a more 'full' feel to the game's virtual worlds.

Unfortunately, the actual racing is a lot less varied than the game's gorgeous presentation. The vast majority of Horizon Chase 2's action takes shape as simple circuit racing, with just the odd time trial thrown in during the game's roughly four hour-long World Tour. Some alternative racing modes like 'Elimination', or maybe even a crash mode of sorts where you need to bump other players off-course would have been welcome - just to shake things up a bit. That, paired with a few more locations would have made Horizon Chase 2's World Tour a slam dunk, but it's still a very fun time as it is.

Outside of the main career mode you've got 'Tournaments' — which throw together World Tour races into a simple four-race format at various difficulty levels — and 'Playground'; the game's multiplayer mode. Tournament mode is good fun and will likely be the place to return for quick Horizon Chase 2 racing sessions post-career mode, and we'd imagine multiplayer would be good fun in this game if a community builds up. As is the norm, we haven't spent any time online during the review phase due to a lack of players hopping on Horizon Chase 2 pre-release.

One final note to touch on here is the game's overall presentation and performance from an Xbox Series X perspective. Aside from the odd hitch here and there, Horizon Chase 2 never missed a beat for us - even at some of the ridiculous speeds this racer can climb up to. You're seeing at least 60FPS playback here on Microsoft's flagship console, as you'd expect for a game of this nature. We read up on the fact that Horizon Chase 2's performance suffered a bit with the 2023 Nintendo Switch release, but there's no evidence of that here on Xbox Series X.