Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels Expansion Review: Hot, Indeed
It turns out that a virtual wonder world of Hot Wheels orange tracks is really fun.
Pros
- Stunning visuals
- Tons of fun events
- You're driving on giant freakin' Hot Wheels tracks
Cons
- It starts off with a slow car
- Needs more Hot Wheels-themed cars
The Hot Wheels expansion forForza Horizon 5will be out by the time you read this, but we had the chance to jump in a few days early to get a feel for it. This expansion marks the second time that Hot Wheels has teamed up with the racing game franchise; the first time was in the Australia-basedForza Horizon 3.
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Forza Horizon 5's Mexico open world map is the biggest in the history of the franchise, so we went in with high expectations for this new expansion. It needed to do much more than just repeat what was done previously in a different location. We'll let you know if it met that goal for us, but first let's get into what's on offer should you pick up this DLC expansion.
What do you get with the Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels expansion?
The main course of theForza Horizon 5Hot Wheels expansion is what the game refers to as "Horizon Hot Wheels Park." Players can drive to a specific spot on the regular map and get transported to the park which is effectively a separate map. The new area is made up of 125 in-game miles of the iconic Hot Wheels tracks.
The park is split up into four new biomes: Giant's Canyon, the Ice Cauldron, Forest Falls, and Horizon Nexus (which is effectively a floating hub in the center of the Hot Wheels track web). The names of the biomes strongly imply the type of environmental elements players will encounter while visiting them.
The expansion also comes with plenty of new Hot Wheels-themed "parts" that can be used inForza Horizon 5's "Event Lab" feature that allows players to physically build their own tracks in the virtual open world and create their own events.
Finally, the expansion includes the following 10 cars: 2012 Hot Wheels "Bad to the Blade", 2013 Hot Wheels Baja Bone Shaker, 2000 Hot Wheels Deora II, 2018 Chevy Hot Wheels COPO Camaro, 1993 Schuppan 962CR, 2021 Hennessey Venom F5, 2019 Brabham BT62, 2006 Mosler MT900 GT3, 2020 SIERRA Cars #23 Yokohama ALPHA, and the 2018 Subaru WRX STI ARX Supercar.
That is definitely not a bad collection of cars, but of the 10 only four are actually Hot Wheels-themed. It could stand for more.
Did we like playing the Hot Wheels expansion?
From the start we were struck by the stunning visuals of seemingly endless loops of orange Hot Wheels tracks weaving in, out, and around massive natural structures. The sight of seeing a virtual 1:1 representation of toy tracks being flanked by trees, waterfalls, snow, and other terrain all floating in air never got old. Though, it should be noted that we were playing on an Xbox Series X console, which is the most powerful home console offered by Microsoft at the moment. So those playing on an Xbox Series S, Xbox One, or a lower-end gaming PC may have a different experience with visuals and frame rates.
When it comes to the gameplay, there is a loose narrative involved about making the player into a "Hot Wheels Legend." This is accomplished by competing in events, races, and stunts in different vehicle classes starting from B-class Rookie Rank events all the way up to X-class Legend Rank.
Completing one rank unlocks the next and provides access to more events and faster cars. While no event is repeated, the event types are. However, with the map being so vast, it never got monotonous.
However, we did find that it took longer to get through the Rookie Rank than we liked. This was mostly because you start out with the Baja Bone Shaker, which at times felt way too slow to be competitive. Normally the solution to such a problem is upgrades, but the Baja Bone Shaker already has a maxed-out performance index of 700 so adding new parts would exceed the class. We found ourselves repeating a race several times and having to revert to "aggressive tactics" to make up for a lack of speed compared to the AI competitors.
Once we made it out of the Rookie Rank, the expansion became a constant delight of exploration and joy. Frankly, didn't have time to experience all of it within the time allotted, but we played enough to feel fairly confident in saying that theForza Horizon 5Hot Wheels expansion does not disappoint.
Forza Horizon developers have become adept at creating nearly endless virtual playgrounds for gearheads and even non-gearheads to enjoy. That is almost to a fault as some players may question if they even need this expansion when there is already so much to do in the base game. In our opinion, even if you still have plenty of events left to do in the base game, it is still worth grabbing the Hot Wheels expansion. There is just way too much awesome here to ignore.
Andrew Beckford’s passion for cars started as a middle schooler when his friend Richie explained how an internal combustion engine works. He was bitten by the bug and the rest, as they say, is history. He dug deep into the tuner scene and eventually wrote for Turbo Magazine, Import Tuner, Super Street. He covered car shows, feature builds, and reviewed racing games for those magazines in addition to covering motorsports including Formula Drift, Indy Car, and F1 for his personal blog. Eventually Beckford joined MotorTrend to cover the daily automotive news beat. Besides being a gearhead, Beckford has been a gamer since the ’80s and is a huge fan of the arcade racing games of the ’90s like Daytona USA, SEGA Rally, and Ridge Racer. Beckford’s a movie buff as well, especially comic book films from DC and Marvel. When car culture crosses over with gaming and entertainment, rest assured Beckford is aware of it. In addition to serving as a consultant on a “triple A” racing titles, he’s reviewed major racing games such as Forza Motorsport, Need for Speed, Gran Turismo, F1, and more. He’s also interviewed blockbuster directors including Steven Caple Jr. (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and Neill Blomkamp (Gran Turismo). His biggest profile to date was with Robert Downey Jr. on his love affair with cars and his show Downey’s Dream Cars on MAX. Beckford’s profile of Downey Jr. was the first print cover story written by an African American in MotorTrend’s history. Along with KJ Jones, Andrew Beckford also heads up MotorTrend’s celebration of Black History Month by spotlighting diverse voices in the automotive industry and motorsports. Beckford’s first car was a 1982 Nissan Stanza affectionately named “Stanley” by his late mother.
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