The Xbox One just got another must-have racing game: Forza Motorsport 6 has been officially announced at the first gameplay details revealed at Microsoft's E3 press conference. Big new additions for the series include 24-car racing, night driving and wet weather, on top of a garage bursting with over 450 different cars.
Microsoft has teamed up with Ford for the new game, securing the new Ford GT race car for Forza 6's box art. A shell car was lowered down into the press conference arena ahead of its virtual representation being shown off in a pre-rendered trailer for the first time.
Forza Race Leagues will expand the game's multiplayer modes, although we're still waiting for more details as to what that actually entails. Female avatars will be available for the first time, adding more customisation over player characters than previous entries in the series, and so-called 'Forza Tech' will apparently improve handling in-game, although it's not clear exactly how.
Porsche fans will be happy to hear that the deal between Turn 10 Studios and EA brokered for Forza Horizon will remain in place, meaning Porsche cars will be available to drive for the first time in a main Forza game on Xbox One. That being said, it won't be happening at launch; Porsche will instead be arriving in earnest in a post-release update.
Forza Motorsport 6 will return to 1080p resolution, 60fps gameplay, after Forza Horizon dropped the frame rate to 30 in order to make open-world racing a reality. Unfortauntely the developer has had to make a few sacrifices in order to achieve a stable frame rate - most notably wet weather and night-time racing won't actually be dynamic. Instead you'll need to set event conditions at the start of a race and stick with them throughout. Wet weather and night time racing will be limited to certain tracks too, although locking thing down means Turn 10 can add '3D puddles', which simulate standing water to modify handling as you drive through them.
We're interested to see how well Forza's intepretation of wet weather racing stacks up to Sony's DriveClub , and the incredibly accurate Project C.A.R.S. - we'll find out in September, when the game arrives, exclusively on Xbox One.
