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FORZA HORIZON 2
review | XBOX ONE
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Publisher: Microsoft.
Developer: Playground Games. Released: October 2014 (Europe). Genre: Racing. Other versions: X360. Posted 24th November 2025. By Shane Battams © 2025 |
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If Forza Motorsport offers gamers the suit-and-tie, all-business side of racing games, Playground’s Forza Horizon is its scrappy jeans and tank top equivalent. The original proved a big hit, as while entrenching the traditionally sim-rooted racer in an open world was something of a risk, the cheery atmosphere and quality racing made for a great time. The Xbox One would see entries from both series early on, with Forza Motorsport 5 offering a decent effort despite being a step behind its predecessors. In contrast, Forza Horizon 2 takes a bigger approach in almost every respect: the world is bigger, the event count has been multiplied to the Nth degree and the Drivatar system makes its first appearance in the Horizon series. Luckily for Playground in this instance, bigger definitely means better.
Much like the first Horizon, everything is tied together in a cross-country festival, now taking place over France and Italy. The coastal cities of Nice, Saint-Martin and Sisteron serve as hubs, with unique areas such as a dockyard or airstrip to drive around. The increased distance between key places sees the introduction of Road Trips, a casual but scenic drive to the next location, which adds to the festival vibes. Each of the eight districts features its own set of championships, resulting in more than 160 in all; a huge increase over the previous game, which was somewhat lacking in the longevity department. It will likely take you 25 hours just to reach the initial finale, and full completion will require maybe four times that to see without taking in other aspects. There’s also a handful of exciting event races, seeing you compete against a hot air balloon or even a train.
Forza Horizon 2 improves on its excellent predecessor, delivering tonnes of events and a huge amount of fun
There are more than 200 cars available here, and whether you’re driving a high-performance Porsche or bulkier Jeeps, the game feels great to drive. Handling feels ace and alters depending on what you drive, with faster cars prone to spinning out, but capable of pulling off slick drifts. Races take you over a myriad of environments ranging from highways and narrow streets, to dirt tracks, and even off-road. There’s a slight inconsistency to some environmental objects, as some trees can be smashed through, while others kill your momentum or see your skill combo broken. Handily, however, crashes can be negated using the rewind function, which does at least allow some room for error. You can tell Playground has a passion for cars, as its large roster of vehicles manages to impress with how realistic each vehicle feels to drive, and its arcade stylings let you pull off tricks such as jumps and drifts with ease too.
Each championship offers a handful of races mixing circuit and endurance events, which require a specific car class to partake in. It can be an expensive procedure to acquire a car for the event, but as before, you can adjust the difficulty to alter your credit rewards. The driving line, braking assistance and damage realism can be tweaked with higher settings gifting bigger rewards. The Drivatar system also returns from Forza 5, which tracks other players and builds competitive opponents from them, but you can also change the difficulty, which affects credits. Outside of that, XP is also awarded for race wins, rewarding different wristbands at key milestones. Level-ups also let you perform a Wheelspin lucky draw, which gifts you credits or even a lucky Car prize. It all ensures FH2 is a racing game anyone can pick up and enjoy, with addictive systems that keep you coming back.
Each championship offers a handful of races mixing circuit and endurance events, which require a specific car class to partake in. It can be an expensive procedure to acquire a car for the event, but as before, you can adjust the difficulty to alter your credit rewards. The driving line, braking assistance and damage realism can be tweaked with higher settings gifting bigger rewards. The Drivatar system also returns from Forza 5, which tracks other players and builds competitive opponents from them, but you can also change the difficulty, which affects credits. Outside of that, XP is also awarded for race wins, rewarding different wristbands at key milestones. Level-ups also let you perform a Wheelspin lucky draw, which gifts you credits or even a lucky Car prize. It all ensures FH2 is a racing game anyone can pick up and enjoy, with addictive systems that keep you coming back.
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Exploring the world is also a joy. The colourful rural world makes for beautiful moments you can capture in photo mode, and you can even earn credits for photographing cars for the festival. Boards also return, with XP and a reduced cost for fast travel awarded for smashing them. Barn rumours crop up, and finding them rewards a car after a short time once it’s refurbished, encouraging further exploration. Even how you drive in the open world is tracked, as skills return from the original. Drifts, crashing into objects and overtaking earns you points with combos increasing the score and bigger end scores rewarding XP. This time around, you can also buy Perks, of which there are 25, and these give you bonuses such as discounts, offering more incentive to drive stylishly. Bucket Lists, a sort of replacement for the 1000 club in the original game, also offer a plethora of timed challenges. It’s just a shame the servers shut in 2023, meaning all competitive and co-operative modes (including open world challenges) are now no longer accessible.
Needless to say, there are plenty of reasons to explore this gorgeous world. Beautiful lighting offer sun-kissed drives while strikingly realistic weather effects see rainstorms looking incredible. Car models are intricately detailed and carefully crafted, and handily, Forzavista returns from Forza 5 to show them up close. During races, cars boast stunning reflection effects and damage modelling. Key characters, crowds and some of the environment aren’t quite as sharp, but they’re solid enough. Performance, while half that of Forza 5 at 30fps, never dips or suffers slowdown, which is great. The audio fares well, thanks mostly to a varied selection of radio stations. Whether you’re itching for rock such as Royal Blood, epic classical music or drum and bass from the likes of Nu:Tone, the seven stations offer just shy of 150 songs to keep you happy. The odd voicework and cut-scenes aren’t exactly cinematic gold, but they are at least very infrequent, while the range of cars all sound the part.
Needless to say, there are plenty of reasons to explore this gorgeous world. Beautiful lighting offer sun-kissed drives while strikingly realistic weather effects see rainstorms looking incredible. Car models are intricately detailed and carefully crafted, and handily, Forzavista returns from Forza 5 to show them up close. During races, cars boast stunning reflection effects and damage modelling. Key characters, crowds and some of the environment aren’t quite as sharp, but they’re solid enough. Performance, while half that of Forza 5 at 30fps, never dips or suffers slowdown, which is great. The audio fares well, thanks mostly to a varied selection of radio stations. Whether you’re itching for rock such as Royal Blood, epic classical music or drum and bass from the likes of Nu:Tone, the seven stations offer just shy of 150 songs to keep you happy. The odd voicework and cut-scenes aren’t exactly cinematic gold, but they are at least very infrequent, while the range of cars all sound the part.
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Whether you’re a new driver, a hardcore gearhead, or just have a passing interest in cars, Forza Horizon 2 makes for a fantastic time. Whereas Turn 10’s Forza 5 felt like a launch title in terms of reduced content and outstanding issues, Playground’s follow-up adds to a solid core with a wealth of welcome additions, a huge amount of content and one of the most beautiful open worlds you’d find on eighth-gen systems. Aside from the loss of fantastic social features and multiplayer, there’s still dozens upon dozens of hours of racing to be enjoyed, whether through exploring the open world, competing in the raft of championships, or just going for a Sunday drive.
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VERDICT"Thanks to a wealth of welcome additions, a huge amount of content and one of the most beautiful open worlds you could hope to explore, Forza Horizon 2 is a fantastic sequel offering something for every kind of driver." OVERALL: 9/10 |
OTHER FORZA RACING GAMES REVIEWED
Forza Horizon (2012, Xbox 360)
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Forza Motorsport 5 (2013, Xbox One)
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