5 Things to Know Before Starting Forza Horizon 5

With Forza Horizon 5 officially launching this week, players will get to explore a whole new open-world map. This time, the Horizon Festival takes us to Mexico, offering some of the most beautiful visuals we’ve seen on the Series X, the series’ incredibly fun racing gameplay, and more cars and events than you can shake a gear stick at. To help you get that perfect launch off the line, we’ve compiled a list of five things you should know before starting Forza Horizon 5.

Quality & Performance Graphics Settings

If you’re playing Forza Horizon 5 on Xbox Series X|S, there’s one thing you’re going to want to do right away and that’s choose between the Quality and Performance graphical settings.

Quality is the mode you’ll want to play for the best-looking experience. Shadows and lighting effects look superb, and the game runs at 4K, HDR 30FPS. It also uses ray-tracing but only in the Forzavista mode used for viewing car models up-close.

Performance mode is what you’ll want to select if you’re wanting to steady 60FPS. By choosing this, the game will still run at 4K, HDR but some of the graphical options are turned down a little to help meet that steady and silky smooth framerate.

You are able to change between these options at any time, but doing so will cause the game to restart before any changes are applied.

The Drone Is Your Barn Finding Best Friend

While I’ve already gone through and provided a convenient Forza Horizon 5 Barn Find locations guide for all your needs routing out these pesky hidden wrecks, if you’re looking to do a bit of the work yourself, then you’ll want to make use of your Drone.

Accessed from the ‘Creative Hub’ menu, the drone can quickly survey your surroundings and when you exit the mode, a small drone icon will be placed on your map so you can easily drive over to whatever it is you’ve discovered, namely Barn Finds.

This is particularly useful when you’re searching for a barn in heavily forested areas. Driving through these sections can be tedious, so having a drone that can weave through them makes things a ton easier.

Festival Sites Have Expedition Missions

At the very beginning of your Horizon Mexico adventure, you’ll only have the one festival site. You’ll complete a handful of events — including an epic Showcase — before you’ll earn enough Accolades to unlock the next Horizon Chapter.

You’ll then be able to choose which of the festival sites you want to unlock next, granting you the option of whether you want to focus on road racing, dirt racing, baja or PR stunts. However, unlocking a festival site isn’t as simple as just pressing A on the one you want.

In Forza Horizon 5, there are expeditions you’ll need to undertake. These are essentially mini-missions that you’ll complete to help set up the festival site itself. Think of them as more objective-focused Showcase events, with you driving an eclectic mix of vehicles, doing some outrageous stunts, and taking in some of the stunning sights and varied weather events that Mexico has to offer.

These aren’t really difficult, so don’t lose sleep over them. But a word of advice: complete the optional objectives when you reach the main site. These offer up a bunch of easy Accolades that’ll help you level up and reach the next Horizon Chapter for your festival, which in turn, opens up more races and events for you to complete.

You Can Sell Your Unused Cars Again!

Remember when you had that garage full of cars in Forza Horizon 4 that you simply didn’t — and never would — use? Remember how infuriating it was that there was nothing you could do with these cars other than have them gather virtual dust? Well, erase those nasty memories from your mind, as the Auction House returns in Forza Horizon 5!

If you’ve got a car you’re no longer using, you can list it in the Auction House with a reserve price and a buy now option. While there’s no guarantee that your car will actually sell — as it’s other players who will be purchasing them — it’s better than nothing.

We’d still rather have a simple option to ‘sell’ the car back to the Festival or something, but we’ll have to keep on waiting for that feature for the time being.

There’s Cross-Play and Cross-Save Functionality

If you’re looking to explore the vast expanses of Mexico with friends, then you’ll be delighted to know that you’re all free to play together regardless of what platforms you’re all on. Forza Horizon 5 has cross-play meaning those playing on Xbox One can play with players on Xbox Series X|S consoles and PC players, too. In other words, we’ll all be on the same servers so you can party up without stressing about platform coordination.

Even better, if you’re looking to play a bit of Forza Horizon 5 on Xbox and then a little on PC when you’re supposed to be working… I mean, when you’re definitely on your lunch break but don’t want to get up — then there’s also cross-save progression. As long as you’re playing on the Microsoft Store version of Forza Horizon 5, your saved progress will carry over between PC and Xbox meaning you can pick up where you left off on the other.

Given there’s a ton of cars, events, danger signs, and community challenges to complete, that’s definitely a big positive for us.

Any words of advice you’d give to fellow Forza Horizon 5 players? Share them down in the comments below.