It’s safe to say, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has had a real turbulent launch and right now continues to do so. The launch was literally unplayable with thousands of players keen to get hands-on the shiny new title which ultimately crashed the game’s servers in the first few days. If you were lucky to get in, the game would often hang, get stuck, not load and the user experience frustration grew.

The issues stem mostly from the fact that the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is being streamed directly to your platform rather than downloading a terabyte of plane and world data. Cloud gaming works but that doesn’t mean it’s bulletproof. There’s huge advantages with this method of delivery, especially coming from someone who had to endure massive patch downloads and long load times (sometimes 1-2 hours) from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, so delivering a title like this where you can hop in within 5-10 minutes is a huge feat however the launch showed us the disadvantages.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of my review, I’m currently on gigabit internet so streaming 4K  isn’t a big issue for me. Quite in fact, having gigabit internet or higher in Australia has only really been a recent thing and not a lot of the population has access to fibre or even NBN. Having a title that relies heavily on cloud will shut a lot of players out, I just can’t imagine myself playing this on anything lower than my current download speed.

Once you get into the game, you’ll be greeted with a character creation screen, albeit not a fully fleshed out one but a welcome addition to creating your own pilot to take through the game and career mode creating an immersion into the world of flight sim. From there, you can take it to the skies.

There’s a few things MSFS2020 players will be accustomed to and that’s mostly the challenges and the world map. If you didn’t know already, Microsoft Flight Simulator allows you to drop a pin anywhere on the world map and you can start flying from that point taking the real-world sites backed by technologies such as Bing maps etc. You’ll see the roads in your neighbourhood and possibly your house; while not 1:1 – it’s sure damn close and a crazy feat in technology. People still get shocked when I show them this mode.

The career mode is the biggest selling point of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, you pick a starting airfield; literally any airfield in the world (personally I just picked somewhere down the road) and your pilot career starts from there as a company hires you. You’ll get a series of introductions in Career mode from basic takeoff and landing to more advanced scenarios before taking on more certifications which opens the doors to different career missions. Your life as a pilot is to complete the jobs to earn money and use that money to upskill your licence until you become a multi-class flyer.

Once you earn enough, you can even start your own aviation company which opens the doors to actually managing said company and maintaining your own fleet. This is probably the biggest step up and welcome addition to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 giving the title a sense of purpose rather than just flying around in all the different planes you can get your hands on. While I managed to dump a few hours into the career mode, the game’s bugs and server issues often barred my progress and also increased frustration when things didn’t load in properly, planes missing landing gear (yes it happened twice now) and controls just not responding. These are all bugs that CAN be fixed and once they are, I’ll be definitely sinking most of my playtime into this.

Behind the curtain both technological and visually, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 surpasses the expectation of the previous title. They took the core sim and not only managed to make it look better but overall bring extra life to the already amazing world map with added terrain, textures, effects and more. I was quite scared my PC wasn’t up for the leap from MSFS2020 but the team did a great job with performance in this iteration; quite possibly thanks to the cloud technology. The title performs well in 4K with my ‘starting to age’ RTX 3070 graphics card which was quite surprising. 

The little aspects of improvement like better lighting and minor things like debris effects especially landing airliners and seeing things like snow on the ground get kicked up, or watching a dust trail your plane as you glide down the runway; it’s the minor things that visually brings out the immersion of being in the real world.

Weird at first but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 allows you to take a stroll on the ground with your aircraft. Yes, you can take to the land and explore the scenery around the environment but also find fauna and just take in the sights. Walking around the aircraft also allows you to perform pre-flight checks (just like real pilots) if you want to give that extra level of simulation.

While a technological marvel when it works, the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 user experience is far from ready and often smacks my face with a wall of frustration despite loving almost every bit of the new sim. Career mode seems to have a lot of issues when things often don’t load, and this is where my title kept freezing to the point my progress won’t even save anymore and I had to redo it over and over again. Sometimes bugs would happen in missions resulting in you failing it.

There’s also lots of controller issues with my playthrough where I spent half my time talking to other players and figuring out why Turtle Beach Flight Velocity HOTAS setup would often reset or simply won’t register half the time with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. I had several issues and each of them being unique which frustrated the experience even further. Weirdly, I had no issues with the setup in the previous title so I was hoping for a clean transition into this but that wasn’t the case.

At times, sticks would weirdly respond, thrusters wouldn’t register, brakes didn’t work all of a sudden etc. It was a wonky experience and the UI for setting up controllers and equipment is oddly way more frustrating than it should be. Sometimes the mouse would disappear and not register – it was unpleasantly annoying to stop mid flight to reset settings again.

There’s a path of redemption for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 however as most of the issues stem from cloud and lack of polish, I can see the greatness it possess and potentially can be that title we want in the near future however at the moment – if you do decide to jump into it, you may crash – literally. 

The post Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Review – Heavy Turbulence appeared first on Press Start.

With Flight Simulator 2024 coming up, it was a good time to start looking at the flight stick market again. Since the boom of the sim market, we’ve seen, unlike many people, I was still hard stuck using my old Logitech joystick from when I was in high school, so I thought it was time to change that with the Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck.

The Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck is HOTAS (hands-on throttle-and-stick) with a lot of dials, switches and the first one on the market to include a touch screen display. It was a little overwhelming pulling it out of the box but at the same time excited to run it through some titles.

Out of the box, the construction of the units were very sturdy and had a bit of weight to them. Great for desk placement without the issue of the unit moving or tilting. Majority of the stick and throttle were coated in a nice plush soft rubber making it feel premium and adding extra grip for those sweaty hands while in-game. The Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck also features RGB lighting which is also customisable via the software. You can give it a very combat look with some night vision looking green or go simple with some nice light blue.

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There’s a lot of buttons to utilise and probably, maybe too much or not. I did find myself using all the assigned buttons in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, especially that pinky trigger to brake. The trigger itself feels amazing, with the actuation similar to a gaming mouse so you get some satisfying audible click when pulling it.

The most notable stand out feature for the Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck are the screens. No other HOTAS setup on the market features two screens, a small one situated above the joystick and a big touch screen below the throttle. These screens add to the immersion of the product giving you extra buttons plus information.

The touch screen is configurable and you can have multiple profiles. The design is similar to a stream deck if you’ve used one basically allowing to place buttons mapped on the screen. They’re preset ones if you’re too lazy to customise but overall it’s a cool addition – if you’re gonna use it.

Majority of the physical buttons on the unit are programmable, it was actually hard to count how many buttons and switches there were honestly – there’s a lot but the box says 90 so we’ll go with that. Honestly, you’ll probably find yourself mapping this setup for an hour before any flying.

Not all is perfect with the Velocity Flight Deck however. Software wise, annoyingly it’s only available via the Microsoft store. As for me, luckily I do use the Microsoft store however this is not the case with a lot of gamers who avoid it. A separate download not attached to the store would have been better.

While considered a premium product, the quality of the product ain’t all there. While the majority of the switches and buttons feel high end or premium for this price bracket, some feel cheap and at times, off. For example, the same set of switches could feel different and not activate or click the same. While minor, it kinda throws off the overall product where the majority of it feels amazing.

The post Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck Review – A Great Step Up appeared first on Press Start.

When the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was first announced, I was completely taken by surprise. “Another one so fast and so soon?” I said to myself. The hugely successful reboot, Microsoft Flight Simulator came out in 2020 and prior to that, there was a massive gap since FSX. Curious at what Asobo and the Microsoft team had been cooking, they took me on a trip across the globe to find out.

Microsoft Flight Simulator was a big leap for the franchise, you can fly anywhere in its digital twin of our world, basically explore the world at your leisure in stunning visuals and detail. It’s a live sandbox world not only for the hardcore flight simmers but for the digital tourist and casuals that a lot jumped in especially when travelling was restricted during lockdown – it was a perfect time for this title to shine. With the bar set so high not that long ago, where do you go from here?

Talking to Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, I asked him about my feeling of the announcement, whether the shorter period between this title and MSFS2020 might not set the expectation as high:

“The principle has always been; Don’t make a version if you don’t have something fundamental to say. That’s been the principle forever. That’s how we went into 2024.”

“We knew we had to do the architectural change” (which we’ll get into this preview) “…but then you also don’t want to do something half assed. So we’re going to put as much stuff in there across the spectrum of what people wanted”

“…which undeniably is a huge step forward”

Which is true, after hands-on with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and talking to the team. The franchise took a massive leap forward in such an incredible short amount of time, I was too stunned to speak. In the recent Gamescom 2024 trailer, the biggest key takeaway revealed were the new career mode and activities. This is where I mostly focused my hands-on time.

Embracing the freedom to do what you want, you can choose to start your career mode from anywhere. Yes, anywhere! Well, not really at the commercial airports (that comes later as you progress) but pick a random airfield/airport anywhere in the world and that will be your base starting point in your pilot career.

Career mode really opens up progression as a single-player which the team has heavily emphasised based on feedback from the community; players want more direction and things to do. The career mode goes as deep as customising your pilot to completing training and tests as you progress up. 

There’s a career skill tree which you can find your footing and for complete newcomers, this allows you to learn step by step on the basics of aviation as you progress up the ranks to a commercial pilot. While I didn’t have enough time to fully flesh out the career, it was also mentioned that you can be the boss of the company, allowing you to manage the jobs you take and obviously servicing the aircrafts. That just feels like a whole nother type of game in my opinion; Microsoft Flight Management? 

There seems to be a lot going on in Career mode and the progression ticks all the boxes for those including myself wanting something to come back to which the previous title lacks. There’s definitely going to be a lot of weekends inside sinking hours into this.

Apart from career, some other new highlights I managed to check out in the hands-on were the Challenge League and World Photographer. Challenge League is a new take on the current challenge system which is something I was quick casually into. It reminds me a bit of weekly racing sim challenges where you have to beat your mates. The Challenge League offers three different objectives for the week and you have that timeframe to get the highest score. In the hands-on, I managed to get some good scoring leading on top of the pack for the most part but my helicopter landing skills were not up to scratch unfortunately.

This offers some quick bites of entertainment and also an incentive to load up Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 every night to shave that second or score above your opponents. I love this sort of daily tasks, something to give the game an extra lifespan rather than just flying about. There is a big sense of purpose now.

World Photographer is another welcome addition to MSFS2024, something definitely up the alley for the digital tourists or for those wanting a break. Taking screenshots of amazing scenery has always been one of my favourite things about the previous title; hey look, there’s my house and it seems like the team has absorbed that into its own mode. 

The mode allows you to explore key landmarks around the world but also gamifies it with objectives. Sometimes you can change the time and day to get the photo needed but at other times, you can’t and you rely heavily on noting down the perfect time of the day to jump into the game and take the shot. Animal Crossing was emphasised a lot in some of the design aspects of some of this mode and I can’t wait to explore it further.

While the new modes and career allows some player direction, you can still treat Microsoft Flight Simulator like your usual A to B flying sim. Load up the map, take to the skies but while the core aspect of this feels the same as the previous title, there’s a lot of improvements under the hood which one of them quite notably – the client side of the game.

Coming into this event, I knew I had to ask about the client. While MSFS 2020 was amazing once it was running, the title did suffer from success and the huge updates and file sizes limited the experience with load times with myself and others often leaving the client open for days to update the game. As a casual, this was not ideal.

Talking to Sebastian Wloch, CEO and Co-founder of Asobo Studio, he talked about how the architectural change for the client allowed more accurate data to be streamed and it’s heavily optimised in MSFS2024.

“You’ve seen the build you tested. It was a fresh install. You had everything downloaded in real-time wherever you went or whatever you tried.”

We also saw a comparison of the 2020 and 2024 build; and the speed from desktop to game was almost instant and the team has done well to address this problem. 

While it has definitely improved, I’m curious to see how this works in a real-world setting especially for countries with a far inferior internet (cough Australia) – Sebastian Wloch did also mention that “overall the amount of bandwidth will be reduced as you only get what you need” in comparison to before where everything was packaged. Definitely keen to put this tech at work come November.

Apart from the new activities and updated client, we saw a lot of new tech under the hood. There’s a lot of play here and the sheer amount of data we saw get introduced was a feat in itself. The team mentioned adding every helipad into the game, all the oil rigs and even boats. Boats can’t be a big deal right? Well in MSFS2024, they are. The boats are real-time data geotracked so what you see in the sim replicates real-world data. How do you even start talking about obtaining data like that? Wait till we start geo-tracking real people into the series. (Hopefully not but the team has probably thought about that)

The detail in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is immersive, the groundwork has also been massively improved. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 was defined as amazing to look at but once you got closer to the ground, there’s obviously a level of limitation, things started to be flatter, the world didn’t look as pretty as it was 10,000ft in the air. 

It’s goddamn impressive and (also scary) the digital twin replicates our earth thanks to satellite data and machine learning. It also begs the question where Flight Simulator can go next? Maybe I can just stand outside long enough for a satellite to take a photo of me and somehow I appear in the game an hour later? Let’s not.

When the skies is the limit for a title like this, you improve everything below the atmosphere. Microsoft and Asobo have literally left no rock unturned in MSFS2024, there’s a lot going on the surface as well as under the hood and only having a few hours with this title doesn’t justify how big this next title is. If the previous Microsoft Flight Simulator had you picking up your jaw at the sheer scale of this game, prepare to be amazed again.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 releases on November 19th for Xbox Series X|S and PC. 

The post Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Hands-On Preview – Improvements Across The Board appeared first on Press Start.

Rally games will always have a special place in my heart, especially the DiRT and Colin McRae Series. As one of the hallmark series’ of the genre, it’s hard to think about any other titles in modern-day rally games apart from the official WRC games. Since working on Dirt Rally 2.0, Codemasters has returned with EA Sports WRC, their first rally title in a few years under the EA banner, and they’re ready to kick up some dust.

In the background of a busy game release month, I’ve been chipping away at EA Sports WRC. And yes, they’ve dropped the Dirt series title and moved into the same formula as their other series, the popular EA Sports F1, keeping the same naming scheme across all their sports titles. It’s also their first time flexing the official WRC name since regaining the licence in 2020. This opens the door to having licenced cars and stages from the WRC, giving the game an authentic real-world feeling.

Upfront, players who dived into the recent EA Sports F1 titles will find plenty of similarities in EA Sports WRC. You’ll create your rally driver and level yourself up through the different modes available, creating a decent sense of personality for a racing game.

There’s a lot to look at off the bat in EA Sports WRC, and I was initially excited to taste every bit of what my preview had to offer. There’s a fully fleshed-out career mode for those wanting to start their rally team and take it through the stages of the WRC, and a builder mode where you can create your rally car from the base default chassis available. There’s also the addition of Moments, something the devs were keen to talk about in an early preview discussion with them, where you can relive iconic moments from WRC history. Your signature time trial and championship modes are still here, as well as a rally school where you can learn the fundamentals of rally racing.

All up, it’s shaping up to be a title packed full of content whether you’re looking to jump in for a stage or two or power through the campaign.

All of the WRC-licensed cars you could want are included and for the first time in the series, the Rally1 cars use a hybrid boost system. Rally1 cars featured here are the Ford Puma Rally1, Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 and Hyundai i20 N Rally1, which also happen to be the main three cover cars for the game. If modern rally is not your thing, the car disciplines on offer range from WRC to old-school classes like Group A. The list is quite extensive and will no doubt satisfy a majority of rally fans.

Speaking of lists, all the WRC licensed stages are here and it’s great to finally experience a Codemasters title with today’s lineup of real-world stages and routes. If you love driving, well, there’s going to be a lot of distance covered in this game. There are over 600km of roads to cover with a lot of famous stages included in the game. The stages were massive too, I can’t remember exactly which one but I had myself driving for a whopping 20 minutes on a stage non-stop slamming it down the gravel roads and keeping my car in one piece.

I played EA Sports WRC on PC and mostly with my racing wheel. It’s honestly the best experience for a title like this and it feels almost perfect. It’s hard to even pinpoint any issues with the core gameplay of this title. The driving is responsive and the force feedback feels incredibly immersive. I guess this is all thanks to Jonathan Armstrong, a rally driver spearheading the game’s direction with the benefit of his real-world experience. While I have the most basic sim racing setup – a Logitech G29 wheel – it represents most racers’ first wheel and even with my very conventional setup I felt every bump, groove, and stone on the stages. I can’t wait to try this out on a direct-drive setup. In terms of controller play, I’m confident this one will feel great with something like the PS5 controller’s adaptive triggers and haptic feedback, too.

From my time with the preview build, my only gripe so far is the game does look slightly dated even when running on the max settings. While stages, car details and effects look great and are a massive improvement compared to their old games, there were some inconsistencies in some aspects of the game’s visuals – especially water effects. Performance-wise, it doesn’t feel quite there yet but again, this is a preview build – I’ll happily wait until the final release is out before making the final judgement.

EA Sports WRC is shaping up to be a massive release for rally fans. If you loved the Dirt Rally 2.0 and the Colin McRae series’, this is a title you won’t want to miss. If this wasn’t on your radar before, then start paying attention because Codemasters have been cooking.

EA Sports WRC releases on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5 on November 3rd 2023. Amazon has pre-orders for $59 including shipping.

The post EA Sports WRC Hands-On Preview – The DiRT Road Ahead appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been roughly six years since Xbox’s leading racing franchise, Forza Motorsport, last graced our screens. The series has taken a backseat ride re-discovering and reworking itself and, after a long hiatus, Forza Motorsport is finally back with Turn 10 Studios is promising a new direction for the series. 

Forza Motorsport has always pushed boundaries as a console showcase delivering breathtaking visuals on all fronts with each release. Turn 10 has taken a long gap here, bringing the series back into the factory to rebuild it “from the ground up” as a new-generation racing title, and it does on most fronts. From the get-go, Motorsport puts you straight into the hot seat – something we’ve been accustomed to with most Forza titles including Horizon. The team is clearly keen to flex their brand-new machine to players and you’ll be wowed from the jump with insanely-detailed cars and beautiful tracks.

Forza Motorsport’s tracks feel more alive than ever and sport an incredible ambience compared to most racers, with fog on-track, dust kicking up and details in the world around the racing itself adding to the effect. There are visual flourishes here that would be a an afterthought in most racing games but are absolutely nailed in Forza Motorsport. The dynamic weather in particular looks gorgeous on the Xbox Series X running in its 4K/ray tracing mode and it’s often hard to believe that this is a game running smoothly on a console – again, those first moments in the game’s introduction are a stunning showcase of what’s to come.

Once the game opens up, you’re free to run through the new Builder’s Cup campaign or dive into any of the single player or multiplayer modes on offer, but the Builder’s Cup is the main meat-and-bones of the single player experience. After the intro, you’ll kick off your career with Builder’s Cup as it features different classes and themes. Each Cup has its own unique flavour, offering up standard street hatches through to super sedans at the beginning before jumping straight into the higher-tier classes. Each cup has roughly about five or six races as you buy and choose your car to take it through the series, and there’ll also a rotation of Builder’s Cup events kicking off from launch so players will continue to have a fresh batch of races to compete in over time.

Forza Motorsport introduces a new car levelling system which has been something of a talking point within the community since it was revealed. Like an RPG (or car-PG?), each car has its own levels and you can only start modding and tinkering with your car once you unlock certain levels, regardless of how much money you have. Want to engine swap your new R34 GTR? You’ll have to spend more time with it before earning the privilege.

Thankfully, you can level your car in just about every mode including multiplayer and private test drives. If you have a favourite car, you can easily spin up your single player session and level it through that. Up front, the new levelling system might be a bit of a rub for fans or casuals who just want to grab their car and start modding. I was definitely unsure as to how this would all pan out when it was first announced, with Turn 10’s justification being an emphasis of the connection between the driver and their car/s.

THE CHEAPEST PHYSICAL COPY: $85 AT MIGHTYAPE

Testing this upfront, I picked up the Nissan Skyline GT-R 34 in a bayside blue and ran with it for a few quick races to see how fast the levelling system is. The downside is, yes, there’s another layer of progression you have to go through and, yes, it can be annoying to have to put in extra work, but the upside is that it all happens relatively fast. Each race had my car gaining two-to-four levels at a time and, after just a few track sessions, some of my cars were quickly reaching up to level 10. While every Forza game has an extensive list of cars available, it’d be unexpected for most players to run 20-plus different cars at any given time. There’s a focus here on feeling connected to a handful of cars and it works.

Motorsport features a beefy lineup of 500+ cars at launch. Most of the popular manufacturers are here and there’s enough of a wide range to please the majority of fans. However, some manufacturers don’t get enough love, such as Toyota and Hyundai, which feel strangely lacking when their hot hatches are some of the most popular cars in real life. Australian fans can rejoice once again as both Ford and Holden have a few cars to play with at launch, so we still get a bit of love despite the game missing the iconic Mount Panorama track. Forza Motorsport is primarily focused on track racing – at least at launch – so you won’t find vehicles for drifting, off-road or street racing here.

On release the game features 20 tracks with the promise of Nordschleife “North loop” track coming in 2024. There are plenty of iconic tracks here at launch that many racing fans will appreciate such as Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Silverstone, Laguna Seca and more. A few fantasy tracks have also been added to the game which returning Forza players will recognise, such as Maple Valley. Each track is beautifully created, again boasting the ability to showcase Motorsport’s dynamic weather system.

The biggest changes to Forza Motorsport come with its gameplay. I’ve been playing this title for a bit from early previews through to the final build and have to say, the on-track feel is a standout result of the new direction and the added realism in racing is more than welcome. The entire physics system has been overhauled and feels excellent. This is the most grounded Forza Motorsport title I’ve played, and as a result cars just respond better overall, feeling far less floaty than in previous entries. It leans towards full-on simulation territory, but only by a bit. If I had to compare it to anything else, I would say it sits quite close to Project CARS or the Need for Speed Shift series, which each provided a semi-simulation experience without going too hardcore.

In saying that, the experience with Forza Motorsport is also very accessible to newcomers or casual fans. Players coming from the more “arcade” Forza Horizon series may find the shift a little daunting initially, but the level of customisation when it comes to overall difficulty and in-game assists is quite deep. You can make a complete Sunday drive out of things, if all you want to do out of the box is drive pretty cars around pretty tracks, with the freedom to progressively turn the heat up and make it a more challenging experience. Fuel and tyre wear are welcome additions for sim fans, adding another level of strategy to the racing if you want it.

If you’re keen to take your skills online, Forza Motorsport features online public and private multiplayer mode. Before jumping into the big races, Featured Multiplayer will have you going through three qualification events to determine your Skill and Safety rating. These ratings are calculated and help the game determine your matchmaking. Are you a clean and fast driver? You’ll be put with the best. Drive dirty? I mean, you see where this is going. Your ratings will also update as you play online so you’ll have to keep those lines clean. My hands-on time with multiplayer was limited pre-launch as there were only a few sessions going, but barring any drastic changes on release the experience has been solid.

There’s a lot to like about the new Forza Motorsport, then, but there are a few things that hold this title from back being truly excellent. While significant improvements have been made to the experience of racing when it comes to visuals, physics and audio – the AI drivers are a different story. Almost entirely unpredictable at times, the AI will consistently disrespect the racing line, side-slam your car and even brake check you during races. I’d expected some tight corners and some shunts here and there, but in nearly every race I was avoiding the AI racers with a ten-foot pole. In one instance, an opponent’s car had lost control and spun out off the track only for the game to fully send it back onto the track and T-bone me into retirement. As it stands now, it’s fairly immersion-breaking and something I hope is on top of the list of fixes for launch and beyond.

During my time with the game I’ve been switching between the Xbox Series X and PC to check out Motorsport’s racing wheel support (my sim rig is PC-based), given Forza’s underwhelming wheel support is something I’ve been fairly disappointed with in the past. After running a few cups on PC with my Logitech G29 though, I’m quite impressed at the out-of-the-box support for the wheel, so that’s a great sign.

Forza Motorsport’s new direction won’t revolutionise the racing genre, but it does provide a fresh start for the series itself. The new physics, gameplay and focus on circuit racing are a good baseline to build this series into something bigger in the future, whether through consistent updates, larger add-ons or even future releases. Turn 10 clearly wants to differentiate itself and the Motorsport series from Playground Games’ over-the-top Horizon franchise by putting the focus on the love of the machinery and the experience of track racing, and holding that line.

The post Forza Motorsport Review – A Successful Turn appeared first on Press Start.

Like a ghost on the race track, the Forza Motorsport series has been absent from the racing scene with its arcade-like open world sister series, Forza Horizon, taking the spotlight as the premier racing title on the Xbox for many years. However, Turn 10 Studios has been actively tinkering and polishing in the garage, patiently waiting for the day to show off its brand-new reworked entry to the series.

Dropping the veil like a new manufacturer car reveal, a shinier, more refined Forza Motorsport enters the grid, and I’ve been able to spend some time with the game (and the Turn 10 team) to get a feel for the future of Motorsport.

The new Forza Motorsport look is not only a brand refresh but a new direction for the series as the team takes a focused look at the love of cars and racing. What’s promised is a built-from-the-ground-up title that presents new visuals, audio, physics and more with a clear focus on circuit racing.

Forza Motorsport looks jaw-droppingly amazing with each iteration and as a primarily PC gamer I’m always in awe of how Turn 10 can put a game this gorgeous on a console. Out of the gate, Forza Motorsport gives us the option to run on three different graphics modes – Performance (Recommended) prioritising 60FPS on-track performance at 4K, Performance RT doling out 60 FPS with ray-tracing and variable resolution or Visuals which offers 4K with ray-tracing at 30FPS. Personally, the recommended performance setting without RT looked fine as I wanted the full performance of 60FPS, but if you want that sweet ray tracing eye candy, I would personally switch to Visuals to be totally wowed.

The preview I played kicks off like every Forza game, giving players a taste of the speed and adrenaline of the cover vehicle – in this case the Cadillac V-Series.R Hypercar – by placing us into the hot seat of a race already in progress on one of the new tracks, the Hakone Circuit.

The track shows an incredible nighttime racing vibe, flexing the game’s amazing track detail and lighting. Japan always has a unique vibrance to it and Turn 10 captured the atmosphere of the country well with the Hakone Circuit, even if the track technically doesn’t exist in the real world. Personally, I’ve been to Hakone and it’s just crazy windy hill roads like the classic Forza Fujimi Kaido track, but I’d imagine with circuit racing the focus in this release, that track wasn’t feasible.

The intro kicks off with a pitstop and announcer explaining it’s up to you to finish strong while the car gets fitted with new threads. Once ready, you’re placed into the Cadillac V-Series.R as it launches out of the pits with that signature electric to V8 loud roar – if you’ve watched how these things launch in real life, you’ll understand – and Forza Motorsport captures that roar pretty well. With only a lap to go, it’s down to the wire as you attempt to grab as many positions as possible, working up the grid. Initially, I came in 4th, but after getting used to how this new Forza Motorsport feels, I got the hang of it and can now easily snatch a podium finish in this opening scenario.

The introduction really throws you deep into the feel of the new racing physics in Forza Motorsport and, in my opinion, it’s a step above the rest of the series. The new direction makes Forza Motorsport feel more grounded, responsive and less boat-y when compared to the previous games. This will impress drivers who crave more realism in this series, with racing leaning more towards the simulation side, especially those like myself who have dived more into that side of racing titles in the last few years.

While a little harder when it comes to getting used to the mechanics, the game still offers a huge level of accessibility for drivers who just want a nice Sunday drive in Forza Motorsport. The game offers a wide array of settings to adjust to your type of racing. If you want something more real-world than Horizon but don’t want to be punished for spinning out your car – there are plenty of assists for casual drivers as well.

Continuing the Builder’s Cup campaign, we were then given a choice of one of three cars for the rest of the preview. Three iconic, yet common street vehicles – the Subaru WRX, Ford Mustang and Honda Civic Type-R were at our disposal. Being somewhat of a Subaru fiend, I quickly locked in the WRX.

Forza Motorsport introduces an RPG-like system for levelling up cars. While there are plenty of cars in the game (and available in the preview), everyone is unique and most would prefer to stick to a handful of cars. When picking a car, you’ll start off with the stock version of it, and this is where the ‘Built Not Bought’ mentality comes in – a famous saying in the Japanese Domestic Market scene where upgrading and making your car unique is what drives your passion. 

As you progress through the races, your car levels up and this opens up options to improve its performance and visuals. Obviously, I had to slap some Works Wheels on my Subaru WRX to give it some unique flavour once I had them unlocked. While I was initially a bit concerned about the time to level each car, the overall system seemed fast enough as I managed to unlock eight levels after just two races.

Upon entering your first race with your new car, you’re greeted with several difficulty settings. As per usual, if you opt to make your race even more challenging, like starting further down the pack or selecting a strict rule set that penalises you for driving aggressively and cutting corners or going off track and so on you’ll earn even more credits. Having the ability to adjust settings like these gives you lots of options to work with depending on what your mood is and if you find the racing just a bit too challenging, you can always tone it down at any time.

Racing starts with a practice session that gives you a set ‘Complete X laps of the track’ objective. I’m not sure if the objectives will change in other cups but there’s also an optional track time to beat if you choose to. Forza Motorsport again shies away from the qualification races mostly seen in other games for a quick practice session and the ability to choose your grid starting position.This is more for accessibility for those who don’t want to sweat it out to get pole position. If you’re feeling hardcore, you can easily just choose the back of the pack.

Racing AI is also promised to be majorly overhauled in Forza Motorsport. I’ve experienced more respect for the racing line, and AI making minor mistakes like losing control on turns and going off track. There’s hardly any lapping and the racing pack kind of sticks unless you’re just too good and get too far ahead, but for the most part, the racing from the AI is tight with no discernible rubber banding. If you make a mistake, however, there’s still the ability to rewind.

I can say, there were sometimes the odd occasions of high levels of aggression from certain drivers. For some races in the preview, the AI would fully cut me off or side-swipe me off the track – it happened pretty sporadically but maybe it’s just that some of the game’s AI has been given the Max Verstappen personality. While not perfect, Turn 10 could very well still be tweaking this for launch.

With the preview build being quite limited in terms of what’s available, we only had access to a few cars and the one segment of the single-player Builder’s Cup. There’s a huge portion of Forza Motorsport that’s yet to be discovered, like customisation and the suite of multiplayer features. Forza Motorsport is set to be a massive title with the confirmation of 500+ cars to race and tinker with and 20 tracks confirmed for launch (five of them being brand new), with the famous Nordschleife also being added in 2024. 

This new iteration of Forza Motorsport will give hardcore racing fans something to look forward to without leaving the casual crowd behind – this a game that prides itself on the love of cars no matter what type of fan you are and I’m keen to dive into the rest of the game once it’s out next month.

Forza Motorsport launches on October 10, 2023 for Xbox and PC and will be available Day One on Game Pass. Amazon has physical pre-orders for $109 including shipping.

The author travelled to Los Angeles as a guest of Microsoft for the purposes of this preview and interview content.

The post Forza Motorsport Hands-On Preview – A Shift In A New Direction appeared first on Press Start.

I recently got the chance to go hands-on with upcoming Forza Motorsport at a special preview event in Los Angeles, where on top of spending decent time with the game itself I got the chance to talk to the co-founder and creative director of the Forza Racing Franchise, Dan Greenawalt, on what players can expect from the series after a long hiatus.

Here’s how it went:

Forza Motorsport has been quite absent from the scene, what is the team doing to bring racing fans back to the series again?

I think for me, Forza Motorsport and Forza in general start with that vision of trying to build that car community. Trying to help people fall in love with cars. The very foundation of the team from day one, was about taking car lovers and turning them into gamers and turning gamers into car lovers. It was kind of an easy thing to say but as the game evolves over time, we’ve done more and more features to bring them in.

So in the new Forza Motorsport, the thing I’m most excited about is all that investment we did to create that passion for cars. And you can see it in everything you play. Did we do huge advancements in physics? We did. There’s more advancement in physics in this Forza Motorsport than the previous titles combined. The most exciting thing about that is that we have 500 cars that have technologies that are so variable and so different; almost no simulator in the world can simulate these differences and certainly not to this level of accuracy. You can put on, old bias-ply tires in our engine, and you can put all these different types of suspensions, body-widths etc. – all of those things to recreate all the different technologies that go into cars.

So, that allows you to fall in love with the 10 cars that speak to you as you push them to your limits because this game is about skill and competition – all of those subtleties really come out. We believe that’s going to build that feeling of ‘oh, I get this car. I love this car’. I’ve done time with it and seen it progress. And it’s also about taking in the skill, it’s not just hitting A, A, A – it’s like you really have to build your skill up. Yeah, we had improvements in the physics, the graphics, the AI… all of these things but the goal is, you find the 10 cars you fall in love with and they’re different to mine.

Now, if you’ve decided to get competitive; rivals mode, time attack, multiplayer etc. well that’s great but even if you don’t and just fall in love with the 10 cars, you can talk to people like me like what you love this and that – I love that community aspect of it.

In terms of physics, what sparked the decision to overhaul and rebuild the physics – was it based on community feedback or was there a different vision for the game?

The reason we have the 500 cars we do, the reason we have the 20 tracks we do, is towards this vision of helping players fall in love. And, with the 500 cars we have painted a picture of diversity and technology, that I mean, there’s just no collection of 500 cars that do quite so much like hybrid systems, electric systems, like turbo, V8 and all that plus all the tyre technologies. So, I say all that and go, imagine here’s the complexity set. You want to do a diversity of cars like we have a 1960s hatchback, modern cars or something. You have to do all these different technologies.

To help people fall in love with cars, you need to have all the little pieces of subtleties to come through and we believe all the subtleties are all there if your maths is correct. So for us, we don’t tune for the stuff to feel right, we’ve invested in the simulation so it just feels right. The maths is true. So when you have an all-wheel-drive car vs. a front-wheel-drive car, they drive differently immediately. You put a different suspension on, they drive differently naturally. So all the investment in physics is towards falling in love with cars.

In terms of the lineup of cars and tracks, you’ve announced that you’re going to have 20 tracks on release (which is less than the previous titles) – how do you manage community expectations for that?

Well, first of all, you’re using the word expectations which is perfect. We’re trying to be exceptionally transparent with everyone. This is what we’ve built, this is what we have, you’re playing it, we’re doing previews, we’re getting all this stuff out so everyone knows what we’ve built and what our vision is.

We chose these cars and these tracks because it’s going to allow us to create this journey. You start off with this group of cars, and you learn them. You don’t start by immediately upgrading them. You start learning and work your way through it, and you go through tracks that really fit in this world with real-time weather and time of day. The tracks have a ton of diversity in both their graphics but also the way the corners move and ungulate. So we’re taking people on a journey where they have a lot of control in where they go but we’re still heading to a place where you fall in love with the car – so that’s why we chose the tracks we have.

Also, we’ve built a racing platform: we’re going to be adding free tracks, and free cars into this game. We’ve already announced we’re adding the Nordschleife, which is a pretty long lap so it’s always difficult to integrate it into our career and featured multiplayer but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to build it but we want to build it accurately. This is a Gen 9 visual showcase, we’re remastering, and we’re rebuilding all the content in our game. So we want these tracks to be accurate, modern, up-to-date to showcase all of that physics and we’re going to be adding tracks to add to the diversity to fall in love with cars.

Visually, Forza has always been pushing the envelope in the graphics department but let’s talk about audio. What improvements can we expect to hear in this latest title?

Huge improvements. Well, first off, there’s a number of voices. It’s all integrated into the same physics technology I was talking about. That we are able to put all of these different myriad of components that build up a car, so what you’re hearing in the car is going to be all the different intakes and exhausts, and timing, cam and all of that – that we can put together as different voices in the car, as well as the mix so depending on where your camera position is and how that changes the mix. More voices in the AI around you as well, you can hear the subtleties in the cars around you and we add all of the Atmos [support] as well.

You can see how that works though, you have all the physics in the right place. You can attach all the correct audio and voices to the components and that makes the car sound just right. Instead of trying to hand tune ‘oh a car sounds like that, let’s try to make it sound like that.’ A car is a collection of technologies. You record each piece of technology and you assemble to form that car.

From a racing sim standpoint, there are things like tyre wear, pitstop strategies and fuel as well that have been added to Forza Motorsport. From a casual perspective, are there things you can and can’t turn off? What can people expect?

In the Builder’s Cup, there are three different rulesets. The third ruleset is what I tend to play on which is the Forza Race Regulations that’s part of multiplayer. When you go into the Builder’s Cup, you don’t do qualifying. You don’t really do pitstop strategies because the races are about so long and the reason we don’t do qualifying, is because we want you to do the ‘challenge the grid’ system. What this is meant to do; is push you through the practice system to drive your car to the limits. Really learn how to drive the car, play with upgrades and learn. If that’s as far as you go as a player, that’s awesome. You’re going to fall in love with 10 cars, maybe 20, new cars are going to come out, the career is going to be constantly refreshing with new tracks and new weather events; things that are happening. So if you just stay there, that’s great.

But if you decide that you love this car and start to be competitive, I know the Forza Race Regulations, I’m not gonna smash into people. Take it to Featured Multiplayer. In Featured Multiplayer, you’re going to find more pitstop strategies. So you can see this is like graduating, from one set of skills to upgrading, practising etc. and then you get into a place where there are other people and they’re pretty fast. That’s where new strategies come into place. It’s not all meant to be there at the same time, they all come in layers as you choose it. If you go into Free Play, you can select rule sets as well and turn features on and off there.

In terms of Featured Multiplayer, how do you prevent toxic drivers, is there some sort of player recognition system?

Yes, the Featured Multiplayer has two big systems/innovations introduced. One is Forza Race Regulations which we introduced in Forza Motorsport 7, which has been completely revamped. It’s a machine learning-based system, we are able to take in information on how people play in Forza Motorsport 7 plus the last six years of us play testing this game to really curtail certain types of behaviours. We can make that more or less strict. That’s basically an AI race marshal.

But coming out of the race, you’re going to be increasing your speed rating, so how fast you are as a player and your safety rating. And in a lot of games, especially ours, we optimise towards speed first then safety second. So now we’re optimising for safety first. So if you’re a clean driver, you’ll be with clean drivers however some of those drivers might be slower but that’s part of racing. So that’s the kind of matchmaking that really helps and we also have all sorts of rules with Forza Race Regulations like penalises you, ghosts you, puts you at the back so it starts to curtail that sort of behaviour.

In terms of licencing, how you keep this many cars in the game when it’s something that racing titles have had troubles with in the past?

That’s a great question, and it’s an ever-evolving space. So when I look back at Forza Motorsport 1, a lot of licensors looked at gaming and were like ‘yeah, kids in their parent’s basement’ which was a little bit dismissive and now they saw with the rise of Forza and other racing games, we are creating real car buyers, like they’re developing their love for an M3, and go buy one when they finally have enough money, so that kinda changed our relationship with licensors because now it’s really marketing.

That gives us the ability to give more equal terms on how we discuss things but these games are some of the most licenced games in the world, we’re talking about a massive number of licensors plus all the music and tracks/signage etc. There are just so many brands throughout. That means licensing is a big deal, we always have to be updating our licensing for people. So we have a comprehensive strategy for how we keep in touch with all our licensors for contracts that work for them and us. Our goal is to keep cars and everything in there forever but we have to work with these licensors because it’s theirs, it’s their cars, it’s their IP. We have to respect them as much as they respect us.

With this new entry, you’ve decided to drop the number from the title. In terms of that, is that moving Forza Motorsport into games as a service or a reboot?

Yes and yes and yes? I wouldn’t say games as a service. This is a triple-A game, this is a Generation 9 showcase and it’s going to be a massive launch. So this is a big launch. So it does feel to me as one of the founders of this franchise, as a reboot. Like we’re back to our heart of falling in love with cars, falling in love through skill and competition and we’re doing it in a very modern way. And integrating the upgrades which is such a big part of Forza Motorsport 1 through 4, integrating that in the core loop. It feels like we’re back to our roots in a cool and modern way. So dropping the number makes sense at that point, but yeah our goal is to make a platform that we can add new cars, tracks and events. Does that look like a service? Maybe? but that’s not really our goal. Our goal is community. 

One thing I’ve noticed about the cover art and marketing in general. Every Forza Motorsport has one hero cover car for launch. This time, there are two cars. Is this a slight nod to the first cover? 

Yeah, the first one – that cover… it was something else. 

… I remember that one alright.

So, it wasn’t meant to be a nod to that. So if you go back to our vision of falling in love with cars and it’s competition and speed. Therefore we have these physics, therefore we have these 500 cars and 20 tracks. When you look at the technologies that we have to simulate, that got us interested. So one of the big reasons we have two cars on the cover is that while both GM (Global Motors) represent some really wild technologies. Like the bump start you do in that Cadillac, it uses this electric engine to kickstart the main engine. That’s cool tech so for us when we try and simulate 500 cars including modern hybrids, electrics and all these different things. It pushes our simulation to a place that nobody is looking at. To me yeah those cars are cool, they’ve got cool technology but also showcase the differentials between all these different cars.

Forza Motorsport launches on October 10, 2023 for Xbox and PC and will be available Day One on Game Pass. Amazon has physical pre-orders for $109 including shipping.

The author travelled to Los Angeles as a guest of Microsoft for the purposes of this preview and interview content.

The post We Spoke To Turn 10 Studios About The Return Of Forza Motorsport And Falling In Love With Cars appeared first on Press Start.

After spending months at home in isolation, my group of friends started to boot up older titles to dive back into – seeing what works with Windows 10, what’s still playable online and even somehow getting multiplayer matches to work with online services that are long gone. One of the series we jumped back into was Command & Conquer. Remakes and remasters have been the trend of the industry for some time now, but none of them have had me more excited than the Command & Conquer remaster. 

Command & Conquer has had a few rough releases before inevitably disappearing into the back of the publisher’s catalogue. The last major release for the series was Command & Conquer 4 which released 10 years ago. While there’s been a few side releases since then (and a cancelled title), the series has been absent for the last decade from the scene.

Command & Conquer Remastered Collection features both the classic title as well as Red Alert as well as all of its expansions. Both titles have been remastered with new crispy 4K visuals for the modern age – more importantly, natively supports the latest Windows. Jumping straight into the single-player campaign, you’re welcomed with the classic ‘often cringe’ FMV cutscenes before being thrown into your first mission, which is presented in its classic low-resolution OG visual state before the game prompting you to press space bar to switch to its newer graphics. Purposely done, this showed how much of an improvement the team at Petroglyph Games have made with the remaster, and it made me reminisce over how far video games have come since 25 years ago.

While the main attraction is obviously the visual upgrades, the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection features lots of extras. The soundtrack has been remastered by the original composer Frank Klepacki, which also includes unreleased and new tracks. Yes, the first thing I blasted was Hell’s March on the Jukebox. There are a few behind-the-scenes contents as well showcasing how some of the FMVs were shot as well as some facts into certain parts of the game – a great insight for those looking to learn more about the titles. You also have a map editor for the game meaning if you fancy creating some of your own maps, the tools have been provided to do so. Maps are Steam Workshop supported so you also have the ability to share and download user content.

The only gripes with the remastered collection are the AI and path-finding which has not been improved on since the original. Units are sometimes clueless and often get stuck and lost. Playing multiplayer with a friend, we ran into issues where our units would get stuck on each other and bunch up too much which causes ‘traffic jams’ on when they attack. The other issue is sometimes the AI is just not that good or has a lack of consistency in aggression.

When playing against the AI on hard, I found that they would attack fast and aggressive at the start only to drift off halfway because they couldn’t understand how to expand the base and retrieve more Tiberium. It was something we noticed when playing the original and remastered versions and while annoying can be easily avoided playing with real online players. Just before the launch, the developers announced the game will be open-sourced which definitely opens the door for mod support and potentially, someone out there might improve the AI and pathfinding.

For fans of the series or RTS, in general, wanting to relive the originals again – the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection is an ode to a series or genre somewhat missing in the world today. Booting up the originals again in stunning remastered graphics while jamming to its brilliant soundtrack gave me a shot of nostalgia while reminiscing my childhood life of playing titles like this on my old Pentium PC as a kid. It’s something for the oldies, but for the younger generation – it may not be of much interest but the ability to visit a classic with modern visuals is an advantage. The Command & Conquer Remastered Collection is definitely something fans should check out and hopefully with open more doors to revisit the other titles in the series especially one of my faves: C&C Generals.

The post Command & Conquer Remastered Collection Review – A Must For Fans appeared first on Press Start.

Intel has launched their new 10th generation processors today in Australia which are available for pre-order from retailers such as MWAVE. Let’s break down the different models available.

Dubbed the “the world’s fastest gaming processor”, the Intel Core i9 10900K Unlocked CPU Processor is the flagship processor of this lineup featuring a beasty 10-core processor with 3.70GHz based clock with a turbo boost of up to 5.3 GHz. Being the flagship model, the processor will set you back $999 AUD but if you’re looking for the crème de la crème from this line-up, look no further than this model.

If the Core i9 10900K is too much for you, the Intel Core i7 10700K and Intel Core i5 10600K models are also available as well as the respected F versions of the above models. F versions feature no integrated graphics meaning you’ll need a dedicated graphics card like an NVIDIA RTX card.

You can find the complete lineup below or head here to preorder CPUs over at MWAVE: 

Some notable features of the new line-up: most of the 10th Gen processors support Hyper-Threading across the board including the Core i5 model where previously was only available on the Core i7 and i9 models. The new models also feature up to three different boosting algorithms and overclocking features as well as native support for DDR4-2933 and higher memory clocks across the board.

These new 10th gen processors use a new socket and chipset meaning if you’re looking to upgrade, you’ll need a brand new motherboard to support as well. Major brands such as MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte have already revealed their line-up of motherboards. You can check them out here.

Both the processors and motherboards will be available from May 21st 2020 in Australia. Due to the nature of the COVID situation, expect the stock to be even more limited than previous generation releases.

You can pre-order them now from MWAVE.COM.AU

The post Intel’s New 10th Generation Processors Are Available To Preorder In Australia Now appeared first on Press Start.

After playing Battlefield V’s Firestorm mode last week, we got the chance to sit down with Criterion Producer, Arthur Rohart about the mode, why it didn’t release alongside of the game and how it distances itself from other battle royale games.

Let’s talk about the development for Firestorm and what it’s like to create your own version of Battle Royale with the Battlefield franchise.

We are both (DICE and Criterion) are fans of Battle Royale games. So as we were playing them and loving those games, spending a lot of time into it; we were talking well while there’s obviously one game that needs a battle royale game and its Battlefield because of the destruction and vehicles you know, the weapons and gadgets. So we started like early on deploying different ideas and working on it. We wanted to bring all the core transport and combat vehicles into a battle royale as well as a really cool zone, something that’s threatening; you’re always on the move. We also wanted to explore other objectives while you are actually surviving like supply points and safe boxes.

My favourite, however, is bringing the destruction into battle royale because in other games – you can just camp in a house but in our game, someone can just explode the house with a rocket launcher and anti-tank. Something that actually happened to me once – a tank smashing through a house. That was a big one to me because you always want to be on the move.

Was Firestorm ever planned to launch alongside the game? Why is it only releasing now?

It was more about like getting it right, really.

The DICE team was we really focused on getting all the modes, all the singleplayer, getting that right. Battlefield fans, they have expectations from that game and DICE delivered a fantastic game. So for us, it was just getting it right – the right battle royale that players have been expecting.

The Battle Royale genre is incredibly fast moving. We saw Apex Legends completely change the game, setting records just a few months ago. Has the vision for Firestorm changed over time?

Not really, personally we are massive fans of Apex Legends and really admire the work that Respawn Entertainment did. Most of my days were playing Firestorm at work and Apex Legend at home but the two are really different games, Apex is all about the characters and is a very very fast paced game. Firestorm is really more about destruction, the combat vehicles, and the objectives – the players’ stories in our game will be different so in the end, they’re really two different games.

Free to play and accessibility has been the big aspect of battle royale titles, how will Firestorm attract new players who probably never played Battlefield before.

Well first, Firestorm was made to satisfy the Battlefield players – respecting that player base. I think it also has a chance to bring out some new players as well as the first half is not as intense. You still get a chance to land if you don’t land in a hotspot, enjoy the game, get some guns and is also a mode that allows you to get some vehicles really quick. It serves as a nice introduction to Battlefield sandbox, for players, there are lots of other things as well within Battlefield and with a planned roadmap and content coming in the future. So there’s a lot of content in the game for new players.

For Battlefield veterans, what gameplay elements are we going to see retained in Firestorm and what didn’t fit into the battle royale experience?

Whenever we explore all the different battlefield tools and toys when we actually began work on Firestorm, again with the whole getting it right. We always make sure it fits the mold. Tanks was a challenging one because we definitely had to make it was quite balanced. Classes were the thing we decided not to bring because we wanted the level playing field – everyone starts equal at the beginning. However, we wanted to tie in the progression into the main game as well pull in your characters cosmetic because you don’t wanna invest like all those hours into a character, getting to know them and you can’t bring them in because it’s really cool what DICE made.

Battle royales have a competitive focused which ultimately made them a new genre for esports over the last few years. Do you think Firestorm will go down this path? 

I don’t really know. For now, we are mostly focusing on the launch and getting the balancing right. We’ll see what the reaction of the community will be like first. I think for now as we approach launch, it’s about getting the balance right but we’ll see about the reaction.

In Battlefield V’s Grand Operations, the last stand round was pretty much a taste of battle royale for Battlefield – was this something you guys used to test or didn’t have anything do with?

It’s something that was just completely separate and different (from Firestorm) but it’s just a reflection of DICE team being a fan of battle royale. The DICE and Criterion were big fans of battle royale but it’s something completely separate.

Firestorm, why did you guys decide to choose a ring of fire over something like maybe Icestorm.

It came mostly from making sure that players noticed the zone. In other battle royale games, you don’t really notice the zone – sometimes it just comes up and because you don’t really pay attention to the UI and map so we really wanted to bring something that the player notices; something that people are scared of as well. So that’s how we came up with the fire.

The fire makes sense because you can see it from afar, you can hear it coming in and destroys everything as well, destroys buildings etc. So it’s about creating again that sense of threat you know, you’re always on the look. What I really like about it is when you start the game, you can see it but personally I like the destruction it brings because we’ve had some interesting stories. Like I had one time, I was hiding in the house and had to completely move into a corner and jump out the window so I didn’t get hit by the Firestorm. Like today, I saw a team in one of the last zones completely hidden in a house and had to move out because of the fire destroying it.

It’s mostly about that, making sure the player doesn’t have to rely on the UI – they look at the world around them, the immersion and they feel that sense of fright and they say to themselves – we have to move.

The post We Spoke To Criterion Games About Battlefield V’s Firestorm Battle Royale Mode appeared first on Press Start.

Two words, Battle Royale – that’s all it takes to create the hype that’s taken gaming by storm over the last few years. While Battlefield V Firestorm seems like a late entry to the battle royale genre, the developers at Criterion have a chance to deliver their own fresh take on one of the most popular trends within the industry.

Battlefield has always emphasised large scale battles, big maps, lots of players and vehicular warfare. The uniqueness of the frostbite engine brings grand scale destruction to the playing field and all this is present in their new Battle Royale mode, Firestorm. The new mode introduces one of the biggest maps to ever grace the Battlefield series called Halvøy. The map is massive – it’s about ten times bigger than the current biggest map in Battlefield V which is Hamada. The map features several valleys and vertical landscapes in addition to open fields and urban towns. You will witness the full scale of the landscape when you drop.

Firestorm consists of 64 players with the ability to play solos or squads. During the preview event, I had the chance to try out both modes and found squads to be the most interesting as encounters and pacing are both quite frantic. If you’re already experienced with battle royales games, the start of Firestorm will be quite a familiar territory with its ‘where are we dropping’ introduction. As our squad prepares to drop out of the plane, the most notable difference is that the Firestorm circle is clearly visible, already engulfing areas around the map. The pre-determined Firestorm circle could be seen as both positive and negative. The idea behind it was to push people to different drop areas of the map (to change up the drops every game) but may limit the experience of the whole map. Personally, I like the idea of the pre-determined circle as it helps contain the action to a certain area and gives slight variation in strategy to every drop.

With no starter weapons, players will fight and scavenge for weapons and loot scattered around the map. Weapons vary in terms of tiers with three different levels available at your disposal. While the weapon balancing is pretty spot on in my experience in firefights, the higher tier weapons give you a slight edge with pre-equipped attachments such as scopes and grips/bipods etc. The best gear, however, is rare and are normally hidden in objectives such as safes around the map. Criterion developers have emphasised that the gameplay is all about ‘high risk high reward’ system which is one of the main focus when it comes to getting better gear. Objectives are dangerous but the rewards are worth it, so players will have to decide on whether to pursue them or play with the whatever gear they have. This also applies for vehicles such as the tank that are locked inside bunkers and require you to bust them out.

Busting out a tank from a bunker was probably the biggest highlight of my hands-on. It’s not easy to get your hands on some heavy armour as you’ll need to find bunkers located around the map and break them open. Opening bunker objectives are pretty straight forward as you and/or your team have to spin the locks to open the door. As you open the door, an alarm will sound and alert the surrounding area of your position making you vulnerable to attacks. The ‘high risk high reward’ gameplay is evident here as the battles could go either way if you’re not prepared for a push. Our first attempt in a bunker breakout was almost successful as another team found out what we’re doing and waited for us to drive the tank out before dropping C4 on our heads and finishing us off with anti-tank rounds, so you’ll always be at the edge of your seat when it comes to completing objectives.

The biggest question I had going into Firestorm was the way the game will be balanced with tanks and armour vs infantry. While Battlefield V is balanced with an anti-tank plus a sheer number of players, a good armoured player can basically steamroll against a squad which is the types of firefights expected in Firestorm. When our squad encountered enemies running a tank, we basically ran around hopelessly like chooks without heads but we noticed they didn’t spot us so we regrouped and took them out with a few Panzerfaust rounds which our whole squad had. Panzerfaust and other anti-tank is common around the map and takes up its own slot.

Firestorm has a total of 17 available vehicles from armoured transports, tanks and (an obvious Criterion take) – a sports car. While planes have been removed from Firestorm, the mode does feature a transport helicopter which adds a faster way of traversing the terrain by air but it’s a highly visible target in the air and will attract lots of gunfire towards your direction. Vehicles in Firestorm also requires fuel to run and while spawned vehicles will have some to run, to keep it running till late game – you’ll require to find fuel. This helps balance Firestorm’s vehicles especially tanks and armoured transport reducing its ability to run around without limits.

Looting is seamlessly fast and hassle-free which sticks to the flow of the gameplay. Criterion has opted to use the Borderlands/Fortnite style loot drops where players can see and identify (thanks to the colour coded system) the loot on the ground or when enemies die. This system works well for the momentum and players can easily pick up more ammo, better guns etc. under fire without hassling through scroll menus or death boxes. Combined this with the weapon tiers, Firestorm eliminates the need for micro-managing gear, weapons and their attachments making it easier to focus on the fighting rather than your inventory which is my biggest gripe with some battle royales.

My time with Battlefield V Firestorm was limited but I did walk away wanting more of the action. The fast combat, the sense of scale and destruction plus an array of combat vehicles at your disposal which essentially makes Battlefield brings something fresh to the battle royale genre. I love this aspect of the franchise, playing around with possibilities with Battlefield gadgets, the what if scenarios, the ‘Battlefield moments’ – pulling all the together into a tried and proven formula like battle royale makes sense and unique.

The biggest question however is pitting this against other titles in its genre; will it compete to the same level? More than likely not because it’s not free-to-play and it’s because of this – Firestorm realistically won’t be able to grab that same market and I feel EA Games knows this. However, after talking to the team at Criterion – they wanted a battle royale for the Battlefield community and what they have here delivers on that experience and I believe this is where Battlefield Firestorm will make its mark.

FIRESTORM LAUNCHES FOR BATTLEFIELD V OWNERS ON MARCH 25th. AGUS TRAVELED TO THE UK AS A GUEST OF EA TO GET AN EARLY LOOK AT BATTLEFIELD V’S FIRESTORM MODE.

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