Whether you’re coming fresh from Forza Horizon 4, or you haven’t entered this wonderful and wacky world of racing since an earlier iteration, there’s going to be some differences in Forza Horizon 5. Here are some Forza Horizon 5 tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your time in Mexico.
Quest for a barn ASAP
As soon as a Barn Find becomes available, head out and find it ASAP. There is a new feature in Forza Horizon 5 that allows players to gift duplicate cars from wheelspins to other players. These are delivered via Barn Find barns, so the sooner you have one available, the sooner you can start getting nice bonuses from strangers (but not in a creepy way).
You don’t have to unlock everything immediately
Depending on how you play, you’ll get enough Accolade points to unlock a new festival expansion every hour or so. If you’re keen to get all the story out of the way ASAP and have your map as populated as possible, then go for it. But if you’d rather work your way through everything systematically, you can just save those chapter unlock points until you’re ready to move onto the next thing. You get to pick your own pace and order at the Horizon Festival.
Looking for inspiration? Check the Accolade point list
If you ever get stuck on something to do, look up the accolade point list and see if there’s anything on there that tickles your fancy. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by choice on this giant map, so either just do something close by, or check that list (which looks similar to the brick challenges from the Horizon 4 Speed Champions expansion) and tick things off one by one.
Radio on or off?
Always leave the radio on, even if you don’t like any of the music, because the Skill Songs are too good to pass up for skill points. Just turn the volume down on the music in settings so you get the benefit of the Skill Songs, without the actual song part. That said, the mix of music this year means there should be something for everyone.
Stick with the classics
Radio Eterna is the best for Skill Songs. Your average pop song goes for 3 minutes. Classical music tracks go for much longer, so you can get a 6-10 minute Skill Song, which is more than enough to boost your skill point total. Besides, there are few things more dramatic than sliding along an active volcano to the sound of Danse Macabre.
An area of beauty, tranquillity and lava
The volcano is the best place in the game. Yes, that’s highly objective, but sitting atop that volcano, you can get a magical view. There’s also a tonne of really fun events up there. I normally play in performance mode, but sometimes I’ll switch to graphics mode just to see the view in 4K.
Save up for a home that gives you more than just negative gearing (in Forza Horizon 5, at least)
It’s going to take you a while to save five million credits, but it’s worth it for Hotel Castillo’s free daily wheel spin. It takes a very long time to save that much, but the extra wheelspin pays for itself relatively quickly.
Horizon Rush is perfect for folks who want to do more than race
Each of the Horizon Adventure chapters has something to offer, but it’s hard to go past the sheer fun of Horizon Rush. It’s all about the PR Stunts and exploring Mexico. Unlocking that early on will give you more Speed Traps, Speed Zones, Drift Zones, Trailblazers and Danger Signs to do as you go around doing races and collecting everything. I recommend unlocking that as soon as you can, unless there’s something you like better.
Let’s have a minute of silence for Forza Hub
Forza Hub was a really handy Xbox app that gave you rewards in the various Forza games you played, based on how much you’d played all of them. At level 10, I was getting 300,000CR a week for Forza Motorsport 7 and Forza Horizon 4, along with various bonuses for the other Forzas. That’s gone now, which sucks, but makes sense. What you get instead is a bonus car in Forza Horizon 5 for each of the previous Forza games you’ve played, going back to the original Horizon. They’re a nice touch, but the 300,000CR a week would have been nicer in the long run…
Get the Treasure Map
If you didn’t get the Premium version of the game, then you won’t have the Treasure Map automatically. That’s totally fine if you like spending hours searching for each individual bonus board and barn find. But if you like to skip the big search and instead focus your energy on working out how to break the boards on top of buildings and cliffs, you’re just $3.60 away from the secrets.
How to deal with motion sickness in Forza Horizon 5
This might be one of the most important tips for improving the overall Forza Horizon 5 experience. Motion sickness is just a part of life for some gamers, which sucks. Switching the car view to Follow – Far by pressing RB a few times should make a big difference for most people. The realism of Forza Horizon 5 can prove an issue for some, though, and for that I recommend switching to Performance Mode instead of Graphics Mode (if you have an Xbox Series X and a TV with HDMI2.1).
You can choose your flavour of Horizon Arcade in Forza Horizon 5
In Horizon 4, you could enter the hourly Forzathon Live and then just hope you didn’t get stuck doing the same Drift Zone 1000 times. Now the Horizon Arcade replacement is labelled with which kind of event it is, so you’ll know whether you like it before you jump in.
Use Forza Link
Forza Link allows you to link up with other people currently playing and either do an activity with them or ask for help with a Barn Find. They can’t use the microphone, so you’re unlikely to encounter anyone who can be truly nasty, and it’s a nice way to have a human connection without actually having to deal with their humanity.
And there you go! Keep these tips in mind when beginning your Forza Horizon 5 journey and you’ll be on way to big bucks and a stacked garage in no time.
Forza Horizon 5 is out now for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Windows PC at retail and via Xbox Game Pass.
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