Forza Horizon 5 Tourist difficulty, changes to weather detailed

Mexico brings changes to the popular driving franchise.

Forza Horizon 5 will bring a new Tourist difficulty mode and other accessibility options alongside changes to the weather system that was implemented in Forza Horizon 4, Creative Director Mike Brown told Stevivor ahead of a deep-dive shown at Gamescom 2021.

“We have a new difficulty mode which is called ‘The Tourist,’ which is easier than any of the modes we have had previously,” Brown began.

The newest difficulty mode will “allow people who just want to explore the game” or “effectively just want to be allowed to win,” Brown said, adding that it “should be able to [let anyone] beat the game at effectively any skill level.” 

This new mode is coupled with “new driving assists… to make it a little bit easier to drive,” no matter the player’s ability.

Next, and in good news for those who didn’t like Forza Horizon 4‘s weekly weather system — shoutout to my husband, who always would put the game away during winter week — as it’s not an all-or-nothing approach this time around.

“Seasons obviously were a huge part of Forza Horizon 4 and they remain a huge part of Forza Horizon 5,” Brown told Stevivor. “It’s fair to say that seasons affect the real-life Mexico in a different way to how seasons with Britain and we wanted to try and reflect that as much as possible. The seasons do still change on a weekly cadence, and they do still work through the calendar in a way that is fairly realistic.”

“You still get snow in Mexico, but unlike Britain — where snow would kind of blanket the whole country —  that just isn’t the case in Mexico,” Brown continued. “Whereas you might get snow atop the mountain, you can drive down that mountain and then arrive at a coastline where it would still be actually very hot. 

“One of the bigger differences from Mexico as well is that as you move through the seasons, the water levels change and the amount of humidity changes,” Brown said. “You’ll see a lot more rain in certain seasons; in the autumn, it moves into storm season, which means that you get a lot more rain events, but also you can see occasional tropical storms as well, where they’ll blow in over the coast and bring… the most intense storms we’ve ever had in a Horizon game.”

“[There, you’ll] really swirling debris and really intense weather effects,” he concluded, “and you can feel how the wind has a massive impact on the environment there as well.”

Forza Horizon 5 heads to Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X as part of Xbox Game Pass on 9 November. For more with Mike Brown, head here.