Forza Horizon 3’s Australia: Map and city selection explained by Art Director Ben Penrose

Sitting down with Forza Horizon 3 Art Director, Ben Penrose, it was hard to ignore the elephant in the room.

That wonky map.

Sure, Playground Games took the same liberties with Colorado’s landscape in Horizon and Nice’s in Horizon 2, but this one’s in Australia, damnit — and as such, we can easily see that the map isn’t accurate. We thought we’d ask Penrose why things look the way they do.

“When we put the map together, there are two things that we’re really considering,” Penrose began. “One is we wanted to get in as many beautiful, iconic locations as we could.

“The second thing is making it play well as a game and making the experience fun. That’s where you sort of take the artistic sort of license, right? You arrange things in a way that works for the game, but still allows people to drive through those locations and go, ‘Oh, I recognize this.’ In the same way that Amalfi is not that close to Nice [in Horizon 2], you know?

“We’ve rejigged things slowly, but it is for the benefit of the game. Hopefully people would appreciate that when they get to play it.”

As you’d expect, it’s less about geography and more about flow.

“In a way, we were looking at a map, there were two of the experiences that we wanted people to have. Naturally, they kind of became their own sort of sections in the map,” Penrose said. “When people get their hands on the game when they play it, I think that should come across in the way they sort of play that, the flow of the game. You’ll have one experience in one of these places, and that will transition to the next.

Penrose also admitted that Playground Games (unknowingly) kept out of the great Sydney versus Melbourne debate by keeping both cities out of the game. He explained to us why The Great Ocean Road and Surfer’s Paradise got the go-ahead instead.

“We really wanted to have two — well at the beginning, two — distinctly different urban areas of Australia’s coastline,” he said. “One, we wanted to sort of capture that sort of small, quaint, surfer-type vibe, that you would associate with somewhere like Byron Bay, for example.

“Equally, we looked at places like [Victoria’s] Lorne and Port Campbell — all those sorts of areas around the Twelve Apostles — and that sort of formed that back section of the coast for us,” Penrose continued. “Then the other section, we wanted to do something that was more of a sprawling, high rise city than we’ve ever done before.

“During the sort of early portions of the research phase — when we were looking at different locations — [Queensland’s] Surfer’s Paradise really stood out,” he said. “It kind of had that vibe, that Dubai type of feeling; big, tall, shiny skyscrapers with lots of glass. That kind of formed the second portion.”

The size of Surfer’s Paradise compared to the likes of Melbourne or Sydney didn’t come into play either, Penrose asserted.

“I don’t think it’s the size [of the city] that’s important,” he said. “One of the things we really liked to do with our games is pick locations that people don’t necessarily expect. It’s kind of part of the surprise of revealing where we are, right? In the same way, Australia is like a surprise to a lot of people. We didn’t want to go to Australia and pick somewhere totally obvious like Sydney or Melbourne. Surfer’s Paradise has that kind of quirky, glittery, glitzy feel, but again, it’s kind of like not something a lot of people have heard of.”

You’ll be able to experience the digital Australian landscape for yourself later in the month when Forza Horizon 3 heads to Windows PC and Xbox One. A demo is available now.