Forza Horizon 4 Winter Livestream Reveals New Details on Car Masteries, Forzathon Shop and Barn Finds
Playground Games held their third weekly Season livestream earlier today, this time focusing specifically on Winter. We were given our first look at free-roam exploration in the snow, and new details revealed about Car Masteries, Map Changes, Forzathon Shop and more.
One of the biggest changes Winter offers is that the majority of roads and mountains will be coated in snow. Progressing towards the Northern side of the map, you will begin to notice far more snow than other locations. Locations with high elevation will feature much thicker snow than those closer to sea level.
During last weeks Autumn livestream, Playground Games revealed the full map of their take on Britain. While the map was stitched together by various community members, Playground have released an official, full size image of the map, showcasing the new map changes when the season transition.
The in-game map will change each season to reflect the new changes that have occurred. You can check out the Winter version of the map below:
A big concern people had for Winter was the handling during the snow. During the livestream it was confirmed that the snow handling model has been tweaked and balanced since Blizzard Mountain, and is still possible during Winter to drive supercars and such on roads without the worry of spinning out or sliding.
Each season is designed to be dynamic and the first winter you experience when Forza Horizon 4 launches will be different to the second and so forth. Some parts of the map that are not covered in snow could most likely be the next winter season.
Barn Finds will also be affected by seasons, with each season featuring their own unique Barn Find. The Winter Barn Find is hidden in the middle of a lake on an island that is inaccessible until the season changes to winter and freezes the lake.
Playground officially revealed Car Masteries during the livestream, which were teased in one of their previous livestreams. As we speculated, Car Masteries are essentially a new perk system tied to each vehicle.
Ben Thaker-Fell, Forza Horizon 4's Chief Game Director, mentioned how in previous Horizon games that there was a global perk skill tree system however had nothing more to do once all perks were completed.
With Car Masteries, each car has their own individual skill tree with their own unique set of skills and perks to acquire depending on the type of car. For example, a Ford Raptor will have a vastly different set of perks to unlock compared to something like the McLaren Senna.
Last week we got our first look at the hourly Forzathon Live events, this week Playground have revealed that regular Forzathon events are returning from Forza Horizon 3. There are three daily challenges for players to complete and earn Forzathon Points in which refresh every 24 hours. These challenges are very simple and can be achieved without realizing.
On top of daily challenges, there is also a Weekly Challenge. A weekly challenge takes much longer to complete, made up of four parts and requires a specific car or car type in order to be completed.
Daily Challenges will reward you 10 Forzathon Points each while a Weekly Challenge will give you 100. There are also seasonal Bonus Challenges to be completed during the season. Completing all Daily, Weekly and Bonus challenges during a week can roughly earn players 340 Forzathon Points per week, with more from Forzathon Live events.
The Forzathon Shop was also showcased for the first time during the livestream. Here you will be able to use Forzathon Points earned via challenges and Forzathon Live events to purchase various items currently available in the shop. These items range from regular cars, Forza Edition cars, horns, clothing, wheelspins and more. The shop will rotate its items daily every 24 hours.
BlackPanthaa has also made a video about all these new details from Playground Games' stream and showcases the new gameplay that was shown off, which you can find below to check out the new gameplay for yourself!
If you missed all the details from last weeks livestream, be sure to check out our Autumn Livestream Recap including new details about online free-roam, photo mode, Horizon Life, progression and more!
Forza Horizon 4 releases on Xbox One and Windows 10 on October 2nd 2018, or September 28th 2018 for Ultimate Edition purchasers, and will be available free for Xbox Game Pass subscribers at launch.