Finding comfort in Forza Horizon 4
I am not someone who usually plays racing games.
My preferred games are ones where I can walk around in an imaginary world, meet interesting characters, listen to music, or chase down a compelling plot. Driving games aren’t particularly on my radar. And yet, more than thirty hours in, I’m still quite surprised by just how much I like Forza Horizon 4. I had intended to spend extra time with it once it was released in 2018, but I have found myself returning to drive around in the virtual version of Great Britain again and again ever since.
Forza Horizon 4 is the fourth instalment in Playground Games’ open-world racing series. Set in a fictionalised version of Great Britain, Horizon 4 is the first game in the series to be built around a full seasonal system. Over the course of a year, the map changes as we move through spring, summer, autumn, and winter. There are lots of interesting things in Horizon 4, but one of the things I most enjoy is how welcoming the game feels. There’s something really pleasant about a game which gives you space; a game which is easy to leave, and easy to return to without any pressure. You don’t have to ‘get it done’ at any specific time, or even ‘get it done’ at all. Perhaps most importantly, you don’t have to jump through any hoops or tick off prerequisite objectives to get to the main event – the driving.
The YouTube comment that sent me there
My discovery of Forza Horizon 4 started with music. I was on YouTube listening to one of my favorite tracks of all time, "A Moment Apart" by ODESZA. It is one of those songs that immediately creates images in my head (GoPro images lol). It has that wide, cinematic quality I love, the kind of sound that feels made for travel, memory, and movement. While reading the comments, I noticed several people mentioning the introduction of Forza Horizon 4. I had no idea what they were talking about, so I searched for it.
The loading music on the Forza Horizon 4 menu is probably one of the reasons the game stayed in my mind before I had even played it. It sets the tone without needing to explain much: the changing seasons, the cars, the roads, the weather, and the sense of freedom are already there in the atmosphere created by ODESZA’s music. At first, I only wanted to understand why so many people were talking about it under the music video; a few hours later, I had installed the game.
A racing game for someone who barely cares about cars
The funny thing is that Forza Horizon 4 works even for someone with a very shallow interest in cars.
Car fans obviously get a lot from it. There are hundreds of vehicles, tuning options, rarity systems, collections, and all the small details that make car people happy. What surprised me is how little knowledge the game requires from the player. I can stay on the surface and still have a great time. I can choose a car because it looks good, sounds nice, feels pleasant to drive, or simply because the game handed it to me and I want to try it.
The only racing game I remember playing in a somewhat similar spirit before was Test Drive Unlimited. It ran on my old laptop, yet I remember the pleasure of driving through an open environment instead of moving from one closed circuit to another. That was the part I liked, and Forza Horizon 4 gives me that feeling again, with far more generosity (and better graphism too).
The Assassin’s Creed Odyssey feeling
The game it strangely reminded me of is Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. That may sound absurd. One is an open world racing game set in Britain. The other is an action RPG set in Ancient Greece. Mechanically, they share almost nothing. Still, my emotional reaction to both games feels surprisingly close.
When Assassin’s Creed Odyssey came out, it really impressed me. I loved its version of Ancient Greece: sailing between islands, arriving in a new region, watching the light change, climbing a mountain, discovering a temple, or simply letting the world open up around me. It was vast, welcoming, sometimes almost too large, and always generous. I played it for the missions, the main story of course, but the main reason was simpler: I liked spending time there. Compared to the harsher world of Cyberpunk 2077, it felt much easier to settle into (who would have thought?). Forza Horizon 4 gives me a similar feeling, but in a smaller and lighter form. Its Britain is more compact than Odyssey’s Greece and built around a different kind of experience. Instead of villages full of characters, mythological quests, or political conflicts between city-states, the map feels closer to a landscape album: a countryside road, a forest path, a city street, a muddy trail, a frozen lake.
Seasons, radio, and the rhythm of the road
The seasonal system is probably the best idea in Forza Horizon 4. The game has four seasons, and the map changes with them. In practice, it does a lot. It gives the world a sense of time. It makes the same place feel different when I return. Because yes, the game system is linked to your clock, so that coming back a few days later can reveal a completely different environment. It changes the roads, the colors, the grip, the visibility, and sometimes the available paths. A lake that was water in one season becomes a frozen surface in winter. A sunny countryside road turns wet, muddy, or covered in snow.
Winter changes the experience the most. I am rarely confident in winter, because the road becomes more difficult and my already questionable driving gets worse. Still, I love that the game is willing to disturb its own comfort.
Now talking about music. My gosh, the music, it's good. Music has always been one of the most important parts of video games for me. I can forgive many things in a game if the music stays with me. A good soundtrack can turn an ordinary moment into a memory. I still listen to video game music outside of games all the time (looking at you Stellar Blade !), and when a game makes me do that, it usually means it has reached me in a more personal way.
Forza Horizon 4 works differently because most of its music comes through radio stations rather than a traditional original soundtrack. These are real tracks placed inside the world. The game has several radio stations, including Horizon Pulse, Horizon Bass Arena, Horizon Block Party, Horizon XS, Hospital Records Radio, and Timeless FM. My strongest connection has been with Horizon Pulse and Horizon Block Party. I did not expect that. In some ways, the game even reconciled me with certain pop sounds I would probably have ignored elsewhere.
There is something interesting about Forza Horizon 4’s radio system today, especially in the Spotify era. We are used to skipping instantly, searching for any song, building our own playlists, and avoiding whatever does not catch us right away. It is convenient, and I use it every day. In the game, though, music works differently. You can switch stations, but you cannot simply summon your favorite track whenever you want. You have to follow the rhythm of the broadcast. A song you do not know might start during a race, and you let it play because the road, the speed, or the weather happens to fit the mood. Other times, you discover something by accident, or keep driving while hoping the track you love eventually comes back.
That is how I ended up keeping some songs outside the game. "Colors" by Beck. "Higher" by Outasight. "Symphony" by Towkio featuring Teddy Jackson. "Wallflower" by Young Futura. These tracks now carry a little piece of Forza Horizon 4 with them. I can listen to them away from the game and still see the road. That is when a game’s music system has done its job. It escapes the game.
Driving away from the noise
Part of why Forza Horizon 4 works so well for me is also because of the time we live in. Today, I am part of a generation that is extremely digital. Or maybe not only me, but my generation in general. We are constantly flooded with information, especially because of the internet, and even more because of social media.
We are connected all the time, not only to what is happening around us, but also to what is happening everywhere else in the world. Problems from our own region, from other countries, from the other side of the planet, all of it can arrive on the same screen, in the same minute. And sometimes, honestly, it feels good to disconnect from that. For me, Forza Horizon 4 does that quite well. It is a mostly solo game, at least that is how I experience it, and it lets me escape for a while by driving on British roads, with only the radio, the landscape, and some races along the way.
There is something very simple in that. You launch the game, choose a car, and drive. You do not have to think too much. You can follow the road, listen to the music, start a race, or just continue driving because it feels good.
There is also a funny side to it. At the time I am writing these lines, with the war in Iran and fuel prices becoming another concern, it is even more amusing for me to play a game where I can drive cars that are completely inaccessible in real life. These are cars I will probably never own, cars that would be impossible to buy, maintain, insure, or even use normally.
Closing the road, for now
In the end, I think Forza Horizon 4 is honestly a very good game. There is a lot of content, maybe even too much sometimes, and not everything has the same importance. The game gives you races, events, cars, challenges, seasonal activities, exploration, and a lot of small things to do everywhere on the map. It is generous, but also a bit scattered.
If I had one real criticism, it would probably be the lack of a stronger campaign or a more present story. The game does have characters who talk to you and follow you through different activities, so it is not completely empty. But I still think Forza Horizon 4 could have gained something from a more structured adventure, or at least from a story that gives more weight to everything you do. Sometimes, I felt like the game was very focused on exploration, events, and freedom, which works well, but I would not have said no to something a little more narrative too. Still, that does not remove what the game does well.
Forza Horizon 4 is accessible, generous, beautiful, and very easy to come back to. It is the kind of game I can launch without thinking too much, play for a short session or a longer evening, and still feel like I had a good time. It also runs particularly well, which is worth mentioning. The optimization is really good, and that made the experience even more pleasant for me. Forza Horizon 4 is one of the best discoveries of this middle of 2026.
To finish, I leave here a few tracks I discovered or rediscovered through Horizon Radio and kept listening to outside the game: "Colors" by Beck, "Higher" by Outasight, "Symphony" by Towkio featuring Teddy Jackson, and "Wallflower" by Young Futura. In a way, they are now part of the road too.