The presentation relies heavily on Ben, the host of the Horizon Festival. That means a condensed version of an area around the Italian border with France plays host to a wide range of races and challenges this time around, as well as the ongoing bass-heavy parties with their seemingly endless supply of fireworks that serve as your hub in each location on the road trip. This time, though, Horizon is having its festival of racing in Southern Europe. We’re returned to the open world system of Horizon 2’s predecessor, away from the sometimes self-serious nature of its track-bound sibling.

That gameplay, of course, is what really matters the most. But all of that is dressing and 99 percent of the time, in the things you’ll notice during gameplay, Horizon 2 generally excels. There could be a little more variation in the kinds of cosmetic damage done to cars and some of the spot lighting, although generally very good, occasionally looks a little separated from the rest of the world when at its brightest. Some of the textures in scenery aren’t ideal, either. The dynamic weather and day/night cycle could be a little more gradual in their changes, for example. There are going to be endless visual comparisons over coming months and in plenty of areas, I suspect that Forza will come up marginally short. There’s a level of fidelity that is as yet unrivalled on consoles, but with a couple of hot prospects in racing arriving on console very soon, does Horizon 2 do enough to remain at the head of the pack? It runs at 1080p and at a particularly smooth and solid 30 frames per second, with the only noticeable frame slowdown coming, somewhat peculiarly, on non-interactive loading screens. It also ensures that the stars of the show – the 210 cars – are all stunningly reproduced.

Forza horizon 2 pc gameplay