Review | Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels

LifeisXbox’s FH5: Hot Wheels review | Michael wrote our Forza Horizon 5 review and like 99% of the players he absolutely loved it. It has been out for a while, but despite the huge amount of content, I was ready for new challenges. So welcome Hot Wheels! An expansion that adds crazy tracks to Forza Horizon. We already know this extreme form from Horizon 3 where we also had a Hot Wheels expansion. It feels a bit familiar because of that but there is enough innovation and especially visual splendour in it to play for hours and hours again.

What is new in this Hot Wheels expansion?

• 10 Hot Wheel cars
• An entire new Hot Wheels map to explore, 212 kilometers (131 miles).
• Design your own tracks with 80 snappable pieces.
• Different gameplay approach with speed and a brand-new roll indicator for skills with tilt angles.
• New story chapters, new camera angles, clothes for your avatar and more!

Let me start on a negative note. What makes Horizon so special is its varied open world where there is something to do or discover everywhere. With Hot Wheels you also have that variety because in just one minute you go from ice roads to diving in an active volcano to driving around in circles up a gigantic tree that seems to have escaped from Elden Ring. But it’s that open-world feeling that’s almost completely gone with this expansion. It is still a big world to explore, but because of the typical orange tracks, you lose a lot of freedom.

Don’t get me wrong, the gameplay is incredibly fun. Much better than Milestone’s Hot Wheels Unleashed. (review) Where that game completely lacked the over the top Hot Wheels content, this expansion does. With impressive jumps over anything and everything, crazy loops and driving over lava and deadly depths. Developer Playgrounds understands where the magic is in Hot Wheels, namely putting the player in control of fast cars on crazy tracks. Tracks that you can create yourself, with 80 extensive stretches of road. I’m really curious to see what the Forza community will come up with.

You can start making your own tracks as soon as you have mastered the Hot Wheels campaign. The creation of your dream tracks will involve trial and error, as you have to take into account that the players have to drive fast enough to reach certain curves. Gravity is the name of the game, and you can also use it to perform all sorts of extra stunts. It’s always nice to earn some extra EXP to twist your car around strange curves.

Let’s face it, these days we always expect developer Playground to release good content or games. It is no different with this Hot Wheels expansion. We are looking forward to the upcoming Fable and Forza Horizon’s second expansion because that will also be great. Wouldn’t I have preferred something other than Hot Wheels? Since we already had that once in 2016…. yes and no. Yes as a new experience would have been nice but no because this expansion is again firmly made and fun to play.