Playground Games devs sat down with GQ to talk some Forza Horizon, and they revealed that they originally meant to make a different game altogether.
Remember Project Gotham Racing? That game was the business, and not a small amount of people were hoping that the game would eventually get a reboot. Well... Forza was originally meant to be exactly that: A reboot of Project Gotham Racing. This was revealed by the Playground Games devs in a sit-down with GQ.
Forza Was Meant to Be Project Gotham Racing
Studio head Trevor Williams sat down with GQ, and explained that the creators of the original Forza series had originally pitched a reboot of Project Gotham Racing. The idea was shut down, and the team was devastated. The switch to turning their racing-game-desire into Forza was actually a last-minute decision, coming to them in a restaurant:
It was one of those stories where the steak turns to ash in your mouth, and I'm thinking, 'how do we afford the flights home? After five minutes, [Forza corporate vice president Alan Hartman] was like, 'what would you do with Forza? Where would you take Forza?' And we pitched what literally became Horizon, almost on a napkin.
So what do we take away from this? Even a failed dream can blossom into something beautiful. A decade later, and Forza is easily the biggest racing franchise Microsoft ever had. And it all started on a napkin... Don't give up y'all. And if you want to read more about Forza Motorsport - it's release date and everything else... we got you covered.