I likeForzain general andForza Motorsportspecifically, though I definitely understand why some franchise veterans might not be quite as thrilled about the content-and-feature-slim offering. The new Update 18, titled Velocity, continues a mildly disappointing streak of post-launch releases, which doesn’t help its case.
More specifically, I do have to point out thatTurn 10 hasturnedthings aroundever sinceForza Motorsportcame out in a sorry state back in October 2023. Heck, the team is even looking atways to reimplement previously sunset FOMO content, which is a nice touch (albeit slow). To say nothing ofthe frankly transformative ray-tracing updatewe received late in 2024. Yeah, it was an eventful 2024 forMotorsport, for sure, but that zippy tempo has now been replaced with a series of more dreary and cynical vehicle roster updates. Sadly, Update 18 is precisely just that: more of the same.
The next Forza Motorsport track is coming in May, but the Porsche update is on the horizon
Forza Motorsport‘s Update 18 continues the established tempo of Update 17 but with a greater focus on racing vehicles in particular. Whereas Update 17 was all about thosesnazzy little daily drivers from Hyundai and the like, Update 18 kicks off the aptly named Velocity Month featuring extremely fast race-cars and production-tier supercars:
It’s a stellar list of cars, I’ll admit. It’s just that there’s not much else to fiddle around with inUpdate 18, other than to complete all the new events as they roll out. Turn 10 has delivered notable audio improvements to the 1998 and 2020 versions of the Toyota Supra (RZ and GR models, respectively), as well as pushing out revised car audio for the 2007 Ferrari 430 Scuderia, as per community feedback.
Multiplayer matchmaking should be better now, too, and “Short” races should last 10 minutes in Featured Multiplayer modes, which is a two-minute increase compared to the old values. Nothing huge, really.
The big “problem” with these updates, as it were, is that there’s no new track or major new content drop to go alongside the usual array of fixes and car roster updates. We know for a fact that the next new race track won’t release until May, for example, which should be Update 20 by my count. In the interim, with Update 18 now actively roaming about, we’re still going to receive one full content drop (Update 19: Porsche Motorsport) without anything else to go alongside the new cars.
Don’t get me wrong: new content is always good news inForza Motorsport, but the track roster should’ve been substantially larger on day one, and not receiving new maps on a regular basis doesn’t spark much hope for what’s to come. Again, we’ll have to wait until Update 20 to see what Turn 10’s long-term plan for the game is. Let’s hope it’s a tad more concrete than what we’ve been getting as of late.
