It’s finally happening: the widely acclaimed Forza Horizon 4 is now officially being sunset for good, as per the official announcement on the game’s support forum. The UK-set title will thus only be available until the end of 2024, but funnily enough, now’s the best time to be playing it.
Indeed, as is the case with every single Forza game released in the past – all of which end up getting delisted sooner or later – Forza Horizon 4 will remain accessible to all license holders for the foreseeable future, with just a few tweaks put into place to accommodate its former live service features. It’s these tweaks, in particular, that help elevate the game from the celebration of digital artificial scarcity that it used to be up until now. Didn’t expect that, did you now? Let me explain!
Now’s the time to buy Forza Horizon 4, if you want a complete experience
Even though Forza Horizon 5 is arguably the superior product, Forza Horizon 4 comes with some wildly different vibes that are, for some players, far preferable to the hyper-upbeat Mexico theme of the newer title. FH4 is, instead, a tiny bit more grounded and comes with a stiff upper lip that precludes the sort of positivity that Playground Games banks so heavily on in FH5. It’s different enough to make it interesting, is what I’m getting at. Something similar could’ve been said about Forza Horizon 3‘s take on Australia, mind, and that game went the way of the dodo years ago, back in 2020.
For those that have been keeping track of Forza content here at Destructoid, this shouldn’t come as a surprise: the franchise is knee-deep in virtually every manner of FOMO, and not all of it is by design. The games’ inevitable delistings, for example, are likely due to a wrap-up of their respective licensing deals: keeping all those licensed cars, manufacturers, and sponsors around is never indefinite.
I did promise that there was a silver lining to this whole business, and I aim to deliver, however. Here’s the good news, from an anti-live-service point of view:
- All owners of Forza Horizon 4 will still be able to play it, including the game’s online multiplayer modes
- The game’s Festival Playlist is getting a (presumably) glamorous sendoff with Series 77, which will wrap up on August 22
- All limited-time vehicles from Forza Horizon 4 will be re-released as permanently purchasable options either for Credits or Backstage Passes
- Playground Games will set up a rotating selection of daily and weekly objectives you can complete to earn Backstage Passes
It’s pretty conflicting, in a way. Time and again, I’ve complained about Forza‘s deeply annoying insistence on not adding virtually anything truly permanent outside of post-launch DLC. Now that a legacy title is being officially delisted, it’s going to be available as a fully-featured game, with all the FOMO tactics scrapped out of it. So, I do recommend getting Forza Horizon 4 now that it’s on deep sale. Doubly so, if the newer titles’ FOMO makes you unhappy.
What this means, in practice, is that you will be able to play and enjoy all of Forza Horizon 4‘s years’ worth of rewards. For some, such as myself, that means finally completing our car libraries in a Pokémon-style “gotta have ’em all” obsession that’s totally not bordering on problematic. For others, it’s all about accessing FH4‘s treasure trove of community-created content. The world’s your oyster, as it were. Or, in this case, a particular fantasy region of the UK is your oyster, but who’s to complain when you can plow through a massive field of corn in a one-off legacy Ferrari model, right?
Heck, by the time you’re done with FH4, its successor may be about to get delisted as well, and it too will presumably end up getting all its content permanently re-released after that happens.
Note that I’m not happy that Forza Horizon 4 is being taken off sale. After December 2024, new players simply won’t be able to experience this huge, wonderful celebration of cars at all. And I don’t need to tell you just how ridiculously unlikely it is that any old Forza game ends up getting re-released anytime soon. I am, however, happy that those of us who do end up jumping back into Forza Horizon 4 after it’s sunset will get to enjoy it at its absolute best.
