The Best Forza Horizon is: FH3

Was FH3 the best Horizon game ever made? Welcome back to the mini-series where I'm covering EVERY Forza Horizon game to answer one question: which one is really the best? Today we're headin' down under to Australia!

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[valkeitos]

FH3 was probably the last game in the series to be focused on the cars with the festival and actually be a blast to play. The festival was implemented perfectly

[scrustle]

One feature I really miss from this game was the custom radio station where you could stream your own music. The way it integrated your music in to the world like all the other normal stations was so cool, like how it would fade out and sound like it was playing from the speakers at the festival site made it feel really authentic and seamless.

I also think this is the last game in the series that had really strong art direction. It still looks amazing. Later games still look nice on a technical level, but they never really nailed the vibes as well after FH3.

[RidgeRunner]

Horizon 3s map absolutely knocked it out of the park, no other Horizon game has a map as diverse of a map as 3. It also has so many more specific areas that were fun to hang out in like the parking lot, boat wrecks, construction zone, logging area, the canyon etc etc

[Blipse]

I'm surprised my favorite feature wasn't in here. FH3 was the last game you could set up custom championships. Play as many as you want, however you want. I loved them because I would do higher difficulties and still feel like I could win overall so I wouldn't restart a race. Lots of fun and rewarding in a gameplay sense. Now, they are only reserved once or so seasonally, with some type of car restrictions. Cars that I may not want to drive in my free time. It's my number 1 hope to be re-added.

[gbalao]

Forza Horizon 3 was released during a tough year for me, being surrounded by the death of my grandmother, my parents being separated at the time, and that my yet-to-be girlfriend back then was stalking me as we happened to live in the same neighborhood, and that I wasn't in good terms with her then.

Back then, whenever I played FH3, I felt like I could put all these problems in the rear-view mirror as I felt so immersed with the game, feeling like I'm really there at the Horizon Festival in Australia, driving my dream cars, as opposed to a depressed life as a high school student, dealing with the loss of a loved one, family problems and someone being so creepy.

[missedmurphy]

The only Horizon where you could play your own music with One Drive. It was amazing

[brvdleigh]

for me, this game brings back really fond memories. the trailer, the dev posts talking about widebodies being added, playing the game on release it left a really amazing impression that i won’t forget

[edtierney]

The soundtrack is so good, and Blizzard Mountain/Hot Wheels are probably the best DLC of any Horizon

[GRIMEYtheFATMAN]

EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. That trailer grabs you by the feels and FUCKS. HARD!

[mindkiller]

Blizzard mountain was awesome DLC. Nothing came close.

[jtr]

I'm still playing it to this day, I never left.

[flashbaxx]

Forza Horizon 3 had, in my opinion, the best expansions in the series. They weren't just map expansions; they were entirely new and unique driving experiences. There was no base game alternative to the pure fantasy loop-the-loops of Hot Wheels, nor the snow-clad terrain of Blizzard Mountain. All the more reason to keep revisiting them again and again.

[bobbykristovic]

Horizon 1 and 2 had the story and atmosphere, 4 and 5 act as a fantasy car sandbox, 3 existed in the middle, best of both worlds. I'm glad to have played it in its hayday.

[HikariSakai]

You also forgot about how it was the only Horizon game that added a custom radio station you could add your own music in the game through Groove Music which is unfortunately completely gone now.

[Peregrine]

Custom championships! Unlike Horizon 2, you can roll up to any route start location, and start an ad-hoc race, but you can also race championships. Every starting location had a pre-made one of 3 or more races, and you could also create your own. On the Horizon 2 video, I commented how the pre-made championships gave you a sense of direction, like "you have so much to do; how about this?" The ability to make custom championships is the other half of that equation that I think is highly missed from Horizon 4 and 5. There should be a whole slate of pre-made championships that can be done at any time, so there's always something for you to do and the impetus to go and do it. Even after they turn down the live service back-end, so there's no pressure to do them all right now. And the ability to make your own championships, and share them with the community.

[LudditeK]

As an Australian truck driver who’s been to every single location on the map, the map really let me down. They ALMOST nailed the feeling. What really bothered me was you could always see Surfers Paradise in the distance. So you never feel like you’re out in the bush, you feel like you’re 30km out of the city…… and there’s red dirt all around you for some reason
Then when you’re driving across the plains you see the American Rocky Mountains?? There are no snow capped mountains in Outback Australia. The Rocky Mountains are in the US

another thing that is kinda more of a nitpick, because I’m a truck driver. The train. It has marker lights like a truck for some reason. So at night it looked like a road train going by, which was cool. But it was a train-train?? Why not just have a road train running a loop around the map instead? Road trains (at least in my biased opinion) are a massive icon of the Australian outback and it was a huge missed opportunity there

I’m probably sounding very negative about it, but that’s just because there’s no point in me repeating all the great things you’ve already said. Absolutely loved that game and really miss what Horizon used to be

[AN-kbkh]

I'm so glad you mentioned the skyboxes, it may be the best I've seen on any game

[rshane]

I’m not sure if it was this game or not but I remember being able to convoy with AI and just drive around with similar cars. I used to spend hours pretending I had a friends. I miss this feature not everyone wants to be online

[mustardpuddle]

FH3 is my favorite Forza game ever. Probably a mixture of the nostalgia from being somewhat young when it came out, and the fact that I played it with so many childhood Xbox friends. I wish I could go back to 2016 with it lol

[ThundaFuzz]

All my life I was a die-hard NFS fan. Owned and played every single one. During 2018, I really felt like NFS was just not fun driving anymore (2015 and Payback with its 'Drift to Turn') and I wasn't into Sim Racing at the time. It was either around the holidays or earlier into 2019 where I saw something about FH4. I gave it a shot and fell in love right away. Went back and tried FH3 not too long after, and besides the physics being a bit more flushed out in 4, I still loved 3 more. The atmosphere, the map, the soundtrack, the learning to tune, all felt really fun.