Microsoft finally confirms Forza Motorsport is over

When Forza Motorsport – a much heralded series reboot – was released in 2023, it should have been a resurgence for the once preeminent circuit racing game.

It wasn’t.

It was reported in July of this year, the 20th anniversary of the first Motorsport game, that the Turn 10 Studios development team had suffered significant job losses.

Meanwhile, Microsoft refused to answer journalists’ requests for clarification. It took a month for any public acknowledgement, which was a bland statement that promised “continued support”.

But, there’s a difference between “continued support” and working on fixes, changes and new content.

Instead, what happened was the repurposing of previous ‘FOMO’ content simply being added back into the game.

Now, as we near the end of the year, we finally have a small statement that simply confirmed what we already knew: Forza Motorsport is dead.

Confirmation, at last

“As our team shifts its focus toward delivering the best possible experience with Forza Horizon 6 in 2026, we do not plan to introduce new cars, tracks, features, or regular bug fixes for Forza Motorsport,” reads the statement, buried within a lengthy ‘Year in Review’ blog post on the Forza website.

Turn 10 is the team that started the Forza franchise back in 2005, while Playground Games worked on the open-world Horizon spin-off games. However, in the ensuing decades, the offshoot has outshone the original titles.

During that time, Turn 10 did contribute, and to an extent, ‘oversaw’ the Horizon games, despite the main work and ideas delivered by Playground.

This statement provides affirmation that those who remain at the studio are predominantly working as a support team for the main UK team creating Forza Horizon 6, which will be released in 2026.

“However, we will continue supporting the game by keeping online servers active, hosting special events and competitions, and reintroducing previously released Featured Tours and reward cars on a monthly basis, until all content is available for you to enjoy anytime,” it concludes.

In other words, continuing to reuse prior content and keeping the multiplayer switched on, for now. At some point soon, however, the re-adding of previous cars and challenges will reach a natural conclusion, and consequently, player numbers will presumably drop.

It was already the end in July, but now it is clear. R.I.P. Forza Motorsport.

Mixed bag

Not without some interesting and different ideas – genre-leading accessibility, classic Laguna Seca and elements of the Featured Multiplayer system – the ‘new’ Forza Motorsport failed to deliver a cohesive experience.

The central career concept of upgrading a single car through a series of events with a point system failed to inspire and was heavily revised post-launch.

The, albeit free, additional tracks were obvious cut-and-pastes from older Motorsport releases despite the “built from he ground up” marketing hype, so too were hundreds of ungainly and inaccurate car models.

Then there were the computer-controlled AI rivals, which would brake mid-corner and behave erratically. Although refined over time, to this day, there’s often a leader that stretches way ahead of the pack, while simultaneously, tail-enders flail about, being lapped in short races.