Today we’ve got the details on this week’s updates for Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Motorsport 7, as well as a splash-and-dash of Forza Esports news as we look ahead to the future of the Forza Racing Championship. Welcome to the Week in Review!

Forza Horizon 4 | Series 9

The latest update for Forza Horizon 4 has arrived. As you may have seen during Playground Games’ livestream debut of the new update, this update is packed with fun events, new cars to drive, and more. On the features side, the Series 9 update starts with the introduction of Custom Adventures, one of the most requested features from the Forza community. Accessible from the Online Adventure tab in the main menu, Custom Adventures now let you create your own Online Adventure and matchmake with like-minded players all over the world.

Series 9 also brings a new Horizon Story called “The Car Files,” featuring a series of events set in the exciting world of car insurance! No seriously, you need to go check it out (look for it in this week’s Festival Playlist). Then there’s the new 80s-themed Showcase Remix of the original Delta-Wing Showcase event, which definitively proves my childhood theory that the Lamborghini Countach could, in fact, beat a fighter jet in a 1-on-1 race.

Perhaps most exciting for FH4 players who love to go online, the Series 9 update includes some new anti-griefing features around wall-riding and collisions that we’re already hearing are making online racing a better place.

Then there are the cars! In addition to a quartet of fun MINI models (including the not-so-mini MINI X-RAID John Cooper Works Buggy), players will also be able to earn the 2018 Apollo Intensa Emozione, a hypercar that’s known more for its insane downforce than its pure top speed. Coming it at a cool $2.7 million in the real world, you won’t want to miss the chance to grab this car when it becomes available in the Spring season of Series 9.

Car Mastery Fix Update

Since the launch of the Series 9 update, we have become aware of an issue where some players’ Car Mastery skills were being reset after installing the update. The team at Playground Games is aware of this issue and are expecting to release a fix by Monday, May 13. In the meantime, we recommend that players NOT spend any Car Mastery Skill Points before this fix is released. Keep up to date with the latest by following the Forza Support Twitter handle.

Forza Motorsport 7 | May 2019 Update

We’re just over three weeks away from the 103^rd running of the Indianapolis 500 and we’re celebrating in Forza Motorsport 7 in a big way with the May 2019 update. Kicking off the update are six new Spotlight cars: four 2019-model IndyCar racecars, a Chevy ZR1 pace car, and the 1969 Ford Brawner Hawk III. That final car is a special one for IndyCar fans, as it’s the car in which racing legend Mario Andretti won the 1969 Indy 500. What you might not know is that the Brawner Hawk was Andretti’s backup car, driven after he crashed his original Lotus in qualifying (oh, and Super Mario also won the race by nearly two full minutes!) With a 50^th anniversary livery celebrating Mario’s historic win, this is a classic piece of motorsport history that every Forza fan should drive.

New cars means new events! In addition to IndyCar hoppers, we’ve got a pair of IndyCar Rivals events, including one starring the Brawner Hawk at Sonoma as our Spotlight event of the month. Oval fans won’t want to miss the Brickyard Bounty Hunter, our final Bounty Hunter event in Forza Motorsport 7. This time, you’ll be driving the 2019 IndyCar of your choice and you’ll be going up against ten real-life IndyCar drivers and owners, all competing to top the leaderboard.

As we’re on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this is going to be one of the tightest, most competitive leaderboards in Bounty Hunter history, with thousandths of seconds being the difference between leaderboard spots. Here’s a look at how the IndyCar participants are faring as of this writing:

The May 2019 update for Forza 7 also includes some important feature updates, including ghosted back markers across multiple modes in the game. Over in the Forza Race Regulations (FRR) world, we’ve got a more granular penalty system, with penalties now being doled out in .25-second increments, and players can now enable a standard FRR rule set in private lobbies. Related to those private FRR lobbies, we’re aware that players cannot Spectate these races. That will be fixed in a future update for the game.

For more on IndyCar month, and a look at our chat with IndyCar racer Conor Daly, who joined us as a special guest, check out the replay of Tuesday’s episode of “Forza Monthly.”

ForzaRC Update – May Testing

2018 was a fantastic year of growth and learning for the Forza Racing Championship. Since last year’s Forza Racing World Championship in London, the Forza Esports team at Turn 10 has been diligently working behind the scenes on the future of ForzaRC, with an eye towards continuing to iterate on and evolve the experience for both viewers and competitors alike.

With this in mind, the team has spent a great deal of effort evaluating the program and considering the feedback received to identify opportunities for both growth and innovation. The next step in that process is happening this month as the Forza Esports team heads to Los Angeles where they’ll be conducting a private week-long test. The purpose of this is to test a number of variables the team believes will play an important role in the continued evolution of ForzaRC, including various competitive formats, exploring new on-screen talent, the broadcast production, and more. This is going to be an intense and exciting week of experimentation and learning, all with an eye towards the future of ForzaRC.

But this wouldn’t be a truly informative experience without having some of the teams involved, so we’ve invited four of them from around the world to join us in L.A.: Sauber Esports, Red Bull Racing Esports, Lazarus, and Williams Esports.

These teams will be a critical part of the test, going hands on and providing direct feedback on the various elements tested throughout the week.

While we know many of you will be excited to learn more about the test and the results, this is a private test and as such there won’t be any public broadcasts or social coverage during the week. That said, we don’t plan to keep this all a secret forever and look forward to sharing more about the test as well as more about this year’s ForzaRC plans, in the months ahead.

‘Along For the Ride’

Long-time visitors to FM.net will remember Johniwanna’s written series “Heavy Metal Affliction,” where he would spotlight interesting cars and their owners. We’ve taken that HMA concept and evolved it into a video series that we’re calling “Along For the Ride.” Episode 1 featured a Honda Civic widebody that was rebuilt to resemble a Renault 5 Turbo. This past Wednesday, we aired Episode 2, a loving tribute to the classic Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

Each week, alongside the short films, Johniwanna hosts a livestream featuring the owners and other guests to talk about their well-loved rides. Look for Episode 3, which will debut alongside our livestream broadcast at 1 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday, May 16.

#ForzaFriday

Hot on the heels of the Series 9 update for Forza Horizon 4, we’ll be welcoming Terrance Newell to today’s edition of #ForzaFriday. As part of Turn 10’s publishing team, Terrance has been working with Playground on the Forza Horizon series since the very beginning. We’ll be chatting with “T” (as he’s known) about his career as an art director and what it’s like working on the Horizon series. Bring your questions and get ready to race in both Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Motorsport 7! The show starts at 3 p.m. Pacific on the official Forza Twitch and Mixer channels.

Here’s a look at next week’s streaming schedule on the Forza channel:

One more note before we sign off, if you’re an Instagram user make sure you’re following the official Forza IG account this weekend. 2017 IndyCar champ Josef Newgarden will be taking over the IG channel for the weekend, giving followers a behind-the-scenes look of Team Penske’s Indy 500 preparations. Josef’s journey to winning his first Indy 500 has already begun so follow along as he gets ready for the big race.

See you next week!

(Thumbnail image by GT: wrongsd)