Looks like Microsoft has more surprises in store for E3 2016. Reported by Videogamer.com, Microsoft has announced that they’ll be hosting a special Forza event that will be taking place during E3 2016. This event will be open to anyone who is attending Microsoft’s E3 Fanfest, and will be held at the LA Petersen Automotive Museum. The shocker here is that the event will take place shortly after Microsoft’s E3 2016 press conference, which takes place at 9:30am PDT / 12:30PM EDT on Monday, June 13.
So, what can we take away from that? Either during the E3 press conference, Microsoft is going announce a new Forza title (perhaps either Forza 7, a new Forza Horizon, or a even an expansion), or they’re going to mention that they’ll be name-dropping something special during the Forza event. While I’d love to get some info on Forza 7, I’m leaning more towards a new Forza Horizon. Date-wise, Forza Motosport 5 was released on November 22, 2013, with Forza Motosport 6 being released on September 15, 2015. During that two year gap, we got Forza Horizon 2 release on September 30, 2014. So it would line up to see a new Forza Horizon title being announced.
Adding to that is the company that works on Forza Horizon, Playground Games, adding a nice little update to their Twitter profile.
What super secret stuff could they be working on? After doing some checking, I haven’t seen anything new announced that they were working on, or have been working on, since the release of Forza Horizon 2. So if they are indeed working on something, we definitely could be seeing a Forza Horizon 3 or even better, Forza Horizon with bikes!
Yes, I said bikes, as that’s been something that people have been asking for for a while. And seeing how the new defunct Evolution Studios managed to do it and do it well with DRIVECLUB, it is definitely something I feel that Forza Horizon could benefit from. Also, keep in mind that Playground Games is made up of members from several studios that worked on racing games in one form or another. Some of those members came from Bizarre Creations, the very same team that gave us Project Gotham Racing on the Xbox and Xbox 360. The final Project Gotham Racing release that they gave us also introduced bikes as well, and it was glorious.
https://youtu.be/_5h1a_9VNCw
While we don’t know if it will be a Forza Horizon 3 or a Forza Motorsport 7 announcement, we do know that a certain car will be featured in whichever game it ends up becoming. During the 2016 Geneva Motor Show, Microsoft and Lamborghini announced that they had formed a partnership that will bring the Lamborghini Centenario to a Forza title. This would also mark the first time ever that this car will be featured in a racing video game, and will not show up in anything prior to its introduction in Forza. This would be similar to Forza Motorsport 6 with the 2017 Ford GT, and in Forza Horizon 2 with the 2015 Lamborghini Huracán.
Finally, I suspect that we could also be seeing more of the Xbox One / PC initiative, along the lines of getting some sort of cross-platform play between the two platforms for Forza. Part of the Xbox branding push is giving PC and Xbox One gamers access to the same games, so I really think this will be a thing as well during the event.
I’ve speculated enough on this, so I guess we’ll find out for sure come June 13, 2016. And I don’t know about you, but I’m a Forza fiend, and I can’t wait.
Sources: Videogamer.com
