Forza Horizon 5 Developer Releases Improved Car Engine Sounds

PlayGround Games has created several videos where the developer shows and hears how the new engine sounds in Forza Horizon 5 sound and are recorded. These sounds and dynamics seem to have improved significantly over predecessor Forza Horizon 4.

The videos feature newly appointed lead audio designer Fraser Strachen. He says that Playground Games has added more than 320 all-new audio recordings of cars to its already existing library of sounds. According to him, this means that cars in Forza Horizon 5 will sound as good as possible. One episode shows how the developer has recorded engine sounds from real cars and also the necessary cars come by to demonstrate their engine sounds.

Strachen further explains that Forza Horizon 5 will not only feature ray tracing in a visual sense, in the Forzavista mode for viewing cars. The game will also use ray tracing for the sound, at 90fps. Strachen says it’s being used to detect walls, ceilings and buildings, as if it were echolocation. This means that the car sounds will be audibly distorted and reflected by buildings and other elements in the environment. In addition, urban environments with hard materials such as asphalt will reflect the sound more and harder than, for example, a jungle environment. This is because different absorption coefficients are used for the materials in the environment.

Players will also have to hear better where other cars are in relation to their position and those sounds will change dynamically under the influence of the environment. In addition, the so-called granular synthesis technology in Forza Horizon 5 is used for all cars, whereas in the predecessor this was the case in 10 to 15 percent of the cars. With this technology, audio recordings of real cars are cut into thousands of very short audio fragments in which certain rotations of the engine can be heard. They can be used very precisely in the game and that is done at 90fps, which is higher than the video frame rate of 60fps. According to Strachen, this means the cars will also feel more responsive.

In general, Forza Horizon 4 players were not always happy with the engine sounds of the different cars. According to many, those were also a decline compared to Forza Horizon 3. For example, engine sounds would sometimes be too similar and not always be unique and recognizable.

Forza Horizon 5 was announced a month ago and the game is set in Mexico. The predecessor was set in the United Kingdom and part three had Australia as the setting. The new game is part of the Game Pass subscription and will be released on November 9 for Xbox consoles, Windows 10 and via Xbox cloud gaming.