Playground captured the vast landscape of alternating colors and twisting, intricate network of streets and adapted it to Forza Horizon 5 to build a massive urban sandbox for players to race around. Guanajuato is one of the more infamous cities in Mexico, and certainly earns a place on the shortlist for “world’s most beautiful cities.” Characterized by bright, vivid architecture and colors, and winding, maze-like roads and tunnels, Guanajuato is a dream come true for car fanatics and drift experts. Still, there are several real-world locations that have been translated in Forza Horizon 5’s rendition of Mexico. Many of the locations you can explore in Forza Horizon 5 sport generic Spanish names, even if they lose nothing in detail or authentic Hispanic representation. With FH5, Playground refuses to repeat the same mistakes.Įverything we’ve seen of Forza Horizon 5’s open world looks breathtakingly beautiful, highlighted by the visual upgrades FH5 enjoys, and offers a ton of environments to tear through in a race, leisurely explore, or anything in between.įorza Horizon 5’s map is based off of Mexico, but it’s obviously not a one-to-one representation, and as such Playground has condensed, renamed, and moved things around to design the perfect car-based sandbox. Despite featuring gorgeous British hamlets, rolling countrysides and fields, and plenty of natural landmarks, Forza Horizon 4 simply lacked variety when compared to its predecessor, which was exasperated by weather and seasons that applied to the entire map at once. While incredible in its own right, FH4’s open world came under fire from players for being too uniform. This is in stark contrast to Forza Horizon 4, which was set in the United Kingdom. Forza Horizon 5’s rendition of Mexico will feature 11 distinct biomes, the highest point in any Forza Horizon game so far, dynamic and localized weather, the return of seasons, and feature several real-world locations, including cities and even ancient ruins. Mexico is a massive country, containing a myriad of different regions and ecosystems, and is the perfect locale for Playground to build its most varied world ever. Many in the community initially lamented this decision as an apparent “downgrade” from the possibilities contained within Japan, especially as many assumed Mexico to be primarily desert, but Forza Horizon 5 is shirking all of these expectations. Initial rumors and community chatter suggested Forza Horizon 5 may arrive in either Mexico or Japan, but the more prevalent rumors prevailed and FH5 was confirmed to be heading back to North America, this time in Mexico. The decision for where a Forza Horizon game will be placed concludes early in development, and affects practically every aspect of the game, including the car list, soundtrack, story, characters, and the world-building details that make Forza Horizon games more authentic and real-feeling than many other titles.įor Forza Horizon 5, Playground Games wanted to build their largest and most diverse open world yet, which is why Forza Horizon 5 is located in Mexico.

Forza Horizon games have always placed importance on their expansive open worlds, and making them as interesting as possible for the players racing through them.

Forza horizon 5 full map