I am ready for more electric vehicles in Forza Motorsport, and it seems Xbox feels the same way.
In the same way that sports game fans watch with interest to see who Madden and The Series Formerly Known As FIFA will choose as their cover athletes each year, racing game fans crane their necks to see which cars will appear on the cover.
The choice of cover vehicles usually gives players an idea of the kind of racing developer Turn 10 is interested in for any new instalment. The same goes for Playground Games’ open-world Forza Horizon series.
The two cover vehicles for Forza Motorsport this time around: the Cadillac V-Series.R, a race-winning prototype Touring hypercar. That’s not so surprising — Forza Motorsport loves a forward-looking prototype. What I thought was more interesting was the companion car, the 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, a powerfully quick, electrified hybrid sports car with the heart of a Touring beast.
We’re excited to confirm your #ForzaMotorsport cover cars – meet the stunning 2023 No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R and 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray. Tune in to the Xbox Games Showcase on June 11th for an up-close look at the cars, and see a full walkthrough of our single… pic.twitter.com/SkGS7y4Y4c
— Forza Motorsport (@ForzaMotorsport) May 25, 2023
Chevrolet says the 2024 E-Ray is one of the quickest cars it has ever made, claiming a 0-100 time of just 2.5 seconds, and a quarter-mile (400m) time of 10.5 seconds. That’s pretty blistering pace for a road-legal sports car you can buy from a dealership. Between its LT2 V8 engine and the e-AWD system that feeds it, the E-Ray produces a roaring 655 combined horsepower.
For those of you that don’t speak Car, having 655 horsepower underneath your right foot feels a bit like being strapped into a rollercoaster you can control. Stomping on the accelerator feels like the hand of God pushing you backwards into your seat and holding you there.
Though not a full electric car, it’s great to see an electrified sports car on the cover of a prestigious racing game like Forza Motorsport. Electrification is still a point of some contention among car lovers. Some are ready to embrace an all-electric future and others are finding it harder to let their roaring ICEs go. The Forza Motorsport cover appears to be trying to split the difference — a race-spec, ICE-powered Hypercar and an electrified V8 hybrid. Older engine technology pushed to the limit on its own terms, and a version of it elevated by extra, electrically assisted power fed directly to the wheels.
Forza has had a relationship with fully electric cars in the past, but mostly focused on Teslas. The Tesla Model S has appeared in several Forza games across the franchise but with the automaker’s public image tarnished by its CEO’s erratic decision-making, cost-cutting, and increasingly poor quality control, it feels like the time is right for competing EVs to get a look-in. Just about every carmaker on the planet has an EV in production at this point. I hope Microsoft spends the money and gets a few more in the game.
Anyway, I wanna drive both of these cars. Xbox will likely have both of the V Series.R and the E-Ray onstage at its showcase next month, where it has promised a closer look at the game’s single-player campaign. A release date is expected to be announced at that same showcase.
Forza Motorsport is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Windows PC. It will also be a Day One drop on Game Pass when the time comes.
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