Forza Motorsport 8 Not In Development, New Tracks and Expansions Coming to Forza 7
UPDATE: Forza creative director Dan Greenawalt has confirmed during March 2019’s Forza Monthly stream that the majority of Turn 10 have now shifted over to developing the ‘next Forza project’. The unnamed Forza project (Forza Motorsport 8) is taking a new approach to development and will be built around player feedback.
During Forza's monthly Mixer livestreams, Turn 10 revealed that Forza Motorsport 8 is currently not in development and the team are focusing on their efforts on new developing new content for Forza Motorsport 7 - potentially pointing towards a huge shift in game development cycles for the franchise.
During the livestream at 1 hour 37 mins, Turn 10's Creative Director Chris Esaki revealed what the studio were up to behind the scenes, and provided an answer many people weren't expecting.
The entire team - 100% - is working on Forza 7. What that means is we're not off making Forza Motorsport 8.... We're looking at tracks, we're looking at all different types of 'expansions'...
This is especially surprising considering how normal Forza development cycles work. A new Forza title has launched every year since the release of Forza Motorsport 4 back in 2011, with Turn 10 developing a Motorsport title one year and Playground Games developing a Horizon game the other.
With Forza Motorsport 8 not currently in development, there will (most likely) not be a new Forza game in 2019, breaking the yearly cycle and signalling a huge shift in how either studio plans to develop and support their titles going forwards.
We've seen signs of this with the new approach to post-launch content for Forza Horizon 4, adding two new vehicles weekly for the first 21 weeks with the Car Pass model as opposed to car packs sporadically released over several months, and weekly season changes with brand new events each season - adopting more of a live service model that will keep players engaged and returning to the game week over week.
Personally I prefer this, as this gives players more bang for their buck knowing their purchases will be supported with new content for years and helps not cause burn out by yearly releases, however means wait times between new titles will be drastically longer. With new tracks and expansions coming to Forza Motorsport 7 instead, a new Motorsport entry might not be releasing until at least 2020, with the next Horizon potentially releasing as far away as 2021/2022.
Are you a fan of this new approach with Turn 10 and Playground Games seem to be implementing to support their games longer, or do you prefer how they do it now? Forza Horizon 4 launches on October 2nd 2018 for Xbox One and Windows 10, or September 28th 2018 for Ultimate Edition purchasers, and will be available free for Xbox Game Pass subscribers at launch.