Not long into playing my preview copy of Forza Motorsport<\/em>, I was intrigued but not that impressed \u2014 until I went back and played Forza Motorsport 7<\/em><\/a> for a while.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Arriving six years after the last entry and as the first game in the series built for the new generation of hardware, this latest Forza<\/em> doesn\u2019t make the biggest graphical leap in the series\u2019 history. But after about 10 hours of driving in the game\u2019s single and multiplayer events with the game, I felt like everything else you encounter while driving, like the audio, physics, and AI drivers, is noticeably different and better this time around.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The handling model, in particular, is what Forza<\/em> players are here for, and it delivered exactly what I expected, especially in comparison to the last game. Forza\u2019s<\/em> \u201cdrivatar\u201d technology for simulated competitors makes for more fun racing with less rubber banding, and whether I use a force feedback wheel (Logitech G923) or gamepad for control, my feeling of connection to the car and the road surface is now back to what we expect from a simulation racing game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Forza Motorsport<\/em> is less of a fantasy car collecting simulator and more like a role-playing game<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The lists of 500-plus cars<\/a> and 20 or so tracks<\/a> aren\u2019t the most of any racing series available. But Microsoft plans to add to those over time. How quickly that happens \u2014 as well as how much those additions cost \u2014 will be a big part of how happy players are with the new game. (The full Nordschleife route, for example, is promised to arrive in spring 2024.) Forza Motorsport<\/em> is also the first game in the main series built in the live service gaming era and has hooks for incoming \u201ccars, career tours, online events, and limited-time Rivals\u201d to keep players invested over the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The graphics will always be one of the first questions for a game like this, and when ray tracing is enabled, I think it holds up to competition like the most recent Gran Turismo<\/em>. On PC, it\u2019s a little disappointing that it doesn\u2019t support Nvidia\u2019s DLSS 3.5 technology at launch<\/a>, but playing on a system with an AMD 5600X CPU and Nvidia 3070, I was able to play smoothly even with the resolution targeting 2560 x 1440 with DLSS on and more other options set to auto. I\u2019ll also mention the game\u2019s built-in benchmark, which system builders should be able to appreciate since it only takes a few seconds to play through and spit out a result.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On Xbox Series X, players can choose between Performance mode, which runs at up to 4K resolution and 60 fps but without reflections and ray tracing, a Quality mode that steps things back to 30 fps with the best ray tracing and reflections available, or Performance RT with reflections on the cars but not the track surfaces. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n