Off To The Races With ‘Forza Motorsport 7’

Microsoft’s marquee racing game is back. Forza Motorsport 7 was announced earlier this week as part of the Xbox press conference, and yesterday we were treated to a behind-closed-doors meeting where we learned more about the game Turn 10 Studios' plans for it, especially for the PC gaming crowd.

Forza Motorsport 7 will be the first numbered game in the series to make its way to the PC. If you remember, the studio also worked on a minor Forza title called Apex, which was available on the Windows 10 platform last year. Since then, the developers used that, as well as Forza Horizon 3, as a jumping point to create Forza Motorsport 7.

The changes to the game start with the campaign, which is now called the Forza Driver’s Cup. The career will span across six major championships, and each one has a plethora of races for you to try out. Some of these contain special challenges, while others require you to have a specific car. In any case, you won’t have to wade through multiple menus for long, as you’ll easily find a race to compete in in a matter of minutes.

The developers said they wanted a track to offer a different experience every time you visit it. This means you can try it out at a different time of the day, or even under different weather conditions, such as an overcast sky or under a barrage of rain. The studio further added an extra layer of realism to the cockpit view, where the car’s windshield wipers and side mirrors slightly shake due to the heavy forces inflicted on the car as it rapidly makes its way around the track.

You’ll gain a slew of rewards after each race, which could include additional credits, mod cards, or even gear for your driver. The game will be the first in the series to feature female drivers, and it will show your full driver avatar so other players can see your gear.

For those who want more immersion, Turn 10 Studios mentioned that the game will support every fan-requested wheel at launch. You can even play the game on PC with the DualShock 4 controller and Logitech’s lineup of PlayStation 4-specific wheels. In that same spirit of immersion, we asked about the potential of VR support for the game. Creative director Bill Giese said that it won’t be there at launch, but the team is talking about the idea of VR support, so don’t count it out just yet.

Just like Forza Horizon 3, the game will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title, so you can play it on Xbox One and Windows 10 if you buy a digital copy. It will also support crossplay, so you can play on your PC and still compete with friends playing on console. As far as PC features are concerned, the studio said that it will support a 21:9 widescreen ratio and unlimited framerates. And, just like on the Xbox One X, the game will support 4K resolution on the PC. In fact, there’s even a PC demo on the show floor, which is using Nvidia’s GTX 1080 Ti GPU.

The studio also release the minimum and recommended specs for the game, which you can view below. There will be a third “High-End” spec for the game, and Giese said it's coming soon. The list doesn’t specify an AMD equivalent CPU, but you can always check out our CPU hierarchy page to see which processor is right for you.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Forza Motorsport 7MinimumRecommended
CPUIntel Core i5-750 (Lynnfield, 2.66GHz)Intel Core i5-4460 (Haswell, 3.2GHz)
GPUNvidia GeForce GT 740 Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 AMD Radeon R7 250XNvidia GeForce GTX 670Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
RAM8GB8GB
StorageN/AN/A
OSWindows 10Windows 10
DirectX Version1212
  • falchard
    Totally unrealistic. Why isn't the racer a woman with a wedgy looking over the shoulder with flowing hair down to the bottom of her shoulder?
    Reply
  • Martell1977
    What Forza Horizon 3 got right was the variety of cars and free roaming. Yes there are race courses and quests of sorts, but you were free to go anywhere you wanted. This looks like a rehash of the NASCAR games but with better graphics and newer cars.

    FH3 runs pretty good on high settings on my PC and in the 7 months I've had it I've only had it crash once. Looking at the system requirements for it, many people probably thought they couldn't run it. FM7 has much for realistic requirements so far.

    Lets hope that there is more to it that just going from track to track. Otherwise, I'll wait for FH4.
    Reply
  • RomeoReject
    19824449 said:
    What Forza Horizon 3 got right was the variety of cars and free roaming. Yes there are race courses and quests of sorts, but you were free to go anywhere you wanted. This looks like a rehash of the NASCAR games but with better graphics and newer cars.

    FH3 runs pretty good on high settings on my PC and in the 7 months I've had it I've only had it crash once. Looking at the system requirements for it, many people probably thought they couldn't run it. FM7 has much for realistic requirements so far.

    Lets hope that there is more to it that just going from track to track. Otherwise, I'll wait for FH4.
    And for those of us who were waiting on a core sim-racer, that would've been absolutely terrible. There's a reason the Horizon series and Motorsport series are completely divorced from one another.
    Reply