Gran Turismo rival Forza Motorsport dies another death

Forza Motorsport’s demise is all but certain, after Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios announced this week it would merge the game’s development team with those who have made the more popular Forza Horizon franchise.

This week, Xbox Game Studios confirmed it would be making numerous restructuring moves within its ranks, with the US-based Turn 10 Studios (founders of the Forza Motorsport series) to be merged with the UK-based Playground Games (responsible for Forza Horizon).

The new studio, name to be decided, “will come together as one studio focused on the Forza and Fable franchises,” according to Xbox Game Studios.

“These two studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade, and today’s changes will formally move their work into one team.”

Turn 10 Studios’ lineage can be tracked back to 2001 when it was established to develop the Forza Motorsport series of racing games, first released for the original Xbox in 2005.

Since then, there have been eight iterations of the series across the Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles, with the most recent entry coming in 2023 as the second self-titled game.

In July last year, it was reported the Forza Motorsport series wouldn’t continue past the most recent instalment, after approximately half of the Turn 10 Studios team was laid off.

Meanwhile, the Playground Games-led Forza Horizon series has been far more successful, offering open-world driving rather than strictly circuit racing.

Launched in 2012, there have now been six Forza Horizon games, the most recent of which was released earlier this year.

The demise of Forza Motorsport has coincided with the downfall of the Need for Speed franchise, with its developers Battlefield Studios Europe – formerly Criterion Games – declaring it’s “solely focused on Battlefield” rather than the 30-year-old automotive franchise.