Forza Motorsport 8 Difficulty Guide: How to Change, Rewards & More

One of the aspects of the Forza Motorsport franchise that stands out is the fact that they’re accurate representations of what the racing experience would feel like. However, with that accuracy comes difficulty, but you’re able to do plenty for your experience to make it less of a struggle. With that in mind, we’ve created this comprehensive guide covering the Forza Motorsport 8 difficulty system.

How Do You Change the Difficulty in Forza Motorsport 8?

To change the difficulty of a race in Forza Motorsport 8, you’ll have to go to start an event in Career mode, where you’ll have a few opportunities to change the difficulty before you start racing. You can access the difficulty screen from the main event page by pressing the Pause button to bring it up. Likewise, as you continue toward the event, you’ll be able to change the difficulty all the way up until you start the race.

There are three main ways to change your difficulty in Forza Motorsport 8. The first is by directly changing the skill level of your opponent Drivatars with the slider in the difficulty menu. You can change this setting from 1-8, with the higher numbers meaning more skilled and more difficult opponents.

You can also change your difficulty by altering the ruleset for your race. You can choose between Club, Sport, and Expert Rules, which all have different penalties based on how your perform and what mistakes you make. Club Rules make it so that your car’s damage is only ever cosmetic and the penalties are very limited, Sport Rules simulate your fuel and tires with more aggressive penalties and Expert Rules simulate realistic damage to your car and hold you to heavy penalties.

Both Club and Sport rules allow you to keep the Rewind feature on, but Expert rules don’t allow for it.

The third way to change your difficulty is on a race-to-race basis, where you can choose what position on the starting grid you begin the race in. The further back in the lineup you go, the more difficult it will be to fight your way up to the front, but you’ll get more rewards based on the rest of your difficulty settings.

What Do You Get For Increasing Difficulty in Forza Motorsport 8?

In order to keep the game compelling from race to race, you’re able to change your chosen difficulty settings before or after any given event. To incentivize you to make the game more difficult though, you’re given greater race bonuses based on how hard you make that event for yourself to win. This bonus is based on the Drivatar’s difficulty, your ruleset, and your starting position for the race.

Before you choose your starting position, you’re given a diagram of the grid where you can see what bonuses you get based on how far back you put yourself. The game will predict what position it thinks you’ll finish in based on your performance throughout the practice laps, and will reward you for giving yourself a greater challenge.

Increasing your Drivatar’s difficulty will result in the biggest bump to your rewards, but it’ll add together with your ruleset bonus to multiply your winnings by the sum of both bonuses. Then, you’ll receive higher bonuses after the race depending on how far back you put yourself, on top of your already-established difficulty bonus.

Another way to switch up the challenge of the game is to mess around with some of your Driving Assists. These make it easier for you to play while they’re turned on, but they can also make the game more of a simulation of what actual racing would be like, increasing the difficulty level. Just know that changing your assists won’t give you any extra bonuses during or after the race.

That’s all there really is to the difficulty and reward system in Forza Motorsport 8. The difficulty evolves as you continue to play the game, so don’t be afraid be turn it up and give yourself a challenge. If you’re wondering how to play with friends online or you want to try your hand at drifting, check out some of our other guides.