Forza Horizon 5 Still Growing With 1 Million New Players Each Month

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Abiyan

At Tech4gamers, I cover all sorts of gaming news. Whether it’s a leak of any upcoming game or an update, an announcement, or a rumour, I like to write about it all. Over the weekend, I sit and write features where I talk about games that I miss or want to see return.

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The Forza franchise is Microsoft’s flagship racing series, offering different arcade racing and simulation titles. While Forza Motorsport debuted last year with jaw-dropping visuals and a return to simulation gaming, Forza Horizon 5 continues to be one of gaming’s best arcade racers.

First racing onto the scene in 2021, this title is still doing well several years later. As noted on Resetera, the game has been visited by a million new players each month after two years of its release.

Why it matters: The racing genre is already quite niche, and most games lose players rapidly in the competitive market of today’s AAA industry. This makes Forza Horizon 5’s growth even more significant.

Forza Horizon 5 has already reached over 37 million players, which is up 2 million since December.

However, since May 2023, the game has found an additional 7 million players joining the Mexican streets for the best modern racing experience on Xbox consoles. In May, the game had reached 30 million players.

Later in October, this player count went up to 34 million players. Subsequent player count updates have shown a consistent uplift for Forza Horizon 5, making this a major achievement for this first-party release.

A number of factors may have contributed to this growth. Since 2023 was a big year for Xbox Game Pass, much of this success likely helped other titles on the service, including Forza Horizon 5.

However, the game is also quite popular on non-Xbox platforms like Steam.

Over on Steam, around 15K players were active in the game at its peak during the last 24 hours. What makes this so interesting is the fact that Starfield does not boast similar numbers on the platform despite its position as Xbox’s biggest launch of 2023.

Nonetheless, nearly 13K players are still active in Forza Horizon 5 at the time of writing.

The talented developers from Playground Games are currently working on Fable, which is reportedly targeting a 2025 launch date for the time being. Job listings have also hinted at a follow-up to the team’s racing game series for the future, though this project will likely take the backseat while the developer completes work on Fable.

Abiyan

[News Reporter]

Abiyan is on track to complete his Computer Science bachelor’s degree. His enthusiasm for writing and gaming motivates him to keep readers and gamers updated with the latest information from the industry. In his free time, Abiyan enjoys playing Dota 2 and Rocket League. Abiyan has also been cited in reputed websites such as Kitguru, Comicbook, GamingBible, Eurogamer and Gamingbolt.