The first big DLC for Forza Horizon 5 shines with crazy roller coaster constructions, but disappoints in other areas. We tell you for whom the Hot Wheels add-on is worthwhile.
A little story from my childhood: When I was three years old, I always had bruises everywhere. However, neither from fighting nor from running around and falling down, but because I preferred to take toy cars to bed instead of cuddly toys.
In other words: I”ve always had a soft spot for little speedsters, so a Hot Wheels DLC for the great Forza Horizon 5 is knocking down open garage doors for me. And yes, driving through orange plastic loops at 400 km/h is a lot of fun. However, the addon also unnecessarily gives away potential, so that I can”t recommend it to everyone at the price of 20 euros.
How much scope is there in the Hot Wheels DLC?
After installing the DLC, which weighs around 11 gigabytes, you can travel from Mexico to the separate Hot Wheels theme park after a short introductory expedition. As is already the tradition with Forza Horizon, the existing open world is not expanded, but a separate, but also completely new game world is added.
The Hot Wheels world is not particularly large (one circuit measures just over 25 kilometres), but it is very varied with four different biomes. The Hot Wheels theme park combines jungle, ice and canyon worlds in a very small space – connected by a central roller coaster nexus.
As usual, the world is peppered with racing events, drift and speed zones as well as jumps. The only really new features are balloons that you can burst. The repertoire of courses provided is also rather limited with 18 tracks. In the long run, the 80 additional Hot Wheels tracks for the editor should help.
The most disappointing aspect for Hot Wheels fans, however, is the sparse supply of cars. The DLC only provides ten new racers, of which only four are real Hot Wheels.
Yes, of course you can also drive the more than 600 other Forza vehicles on the plastic tracks, but there would definitely have been more in it.
Where are Hot Wheels” strengths?
The new open world: The Hot Wheels theme park may not be huge, but its design is one of the most spectacular and fascinating things I have ever seen in the open world genre. The loops, screws and steep curves spiral hundreds of metres into the air, only to send me plummeting into a glowing volcano or a gigantic waterfall shortly afterwards.
This all happens at a breathtaking pace, which makes exploring the theme park a fascinating as well as impressive experience. My tip: If you”re into roller coasters and don”t have a sensitive stomach, you should definitely explore the Hot Wheels world from the bonnet or bumper perspective – this will push the “Wheeee!” factor to new record heights.
The wacky track design: The Hot Wheels DLC for Forza Horizon 3 was already inspiring at first with its roller coaster designs, but it quickly ran out of steam in terms of driving, because I felt like I was only driving over plastic 95 percent of the time. This may be true to the original, but it quickly becomes boring.
Hot Wheels for Forza Horizon 5 avoids this trap thanks to much more varied track sections. I jet through magnetised screws, slide down water slides with feeling or slide around completely icy corners.
In addition, many courses leave the plastic and lead over meadows, scree and snow – all with comprehensible effects on the driving behaviour. Almost every prefabricated track also delivers a really cool twist (sometimes in the truest sense of the word), so that I like to drive it a second, fifth or even tenth time.
The campaign structure: The campaign of Hot Wheels is much more restrictive than that of the main game. At the beginning, I”m only allowed to drive class B cars; I have to earn faster cars by winning races and completing missions.
And it motivates me not to get everything for free right away, but to have to earn rewards like tracks, cars or even clothes first. A practical side effect is a very pleasant learning curve, even if the difficulty level can vary greatly from race to race, as it did in the main game.
In which areas does Hot Wheels disappoint?
The mission design: As much as I like the basic campaign structure of Hot Wheels, some tasks annoyed me. From the third of the five classes at the latest, it”s no longer enough to simply complete races and PR stunts to unlock the next cup.
I also have to race from the “dragon on the hammer mountain in the canyon to the dragon in the volcano” within four minutes in an S1 class car. Where are the lizard beasts? I can at most roughly guess on the basis of the map, but I can”t know. I”m a racing driver, not a bloody scout!
The really great designed Open World would have allowed for so much more creative tasks than lousing up A to B journeys.
Little Hot-Wheels-Atmosphere: The just four real Hot-Wheels cars already hint at how little the DLC gets out of the licence. The fact that it never feels like you”re driving toy cars is somewhat in the nature of the main game and also has its advantages, such as the much better driving behaviour compared to Hot Wheels Unleashed.
However, in Milestone”s competitor, I drive toy cars through a workshop, a student room or a basement. With Forza Horizon 5, on the other hand, it seems as if only Hot Wheels tracks have been stuck into a Forza environment.
The trappings also strike me as more loveless than those of the predecessor”s Lego DLC. There are five (very short) Hot Wheels missions in which I am supposed to learn more about the history of the toy car manufacturer.
In practice, however, this only means that a narrator bombards me with the names of models and constructors while I speed from A to B as usual. If you really want to relive childhood memories, you”re much better off with Hot Wheels Unleashed.
The small scope: If you step on the gas and already have a little Forza experience, you will have seen everything that the Hot Wheels DLC has to offer after two to three hours.
Personally, I”m particularly annoyed by the small number of tracks (only 18) and the short campaign. Yes, of course, thanks to the powerful editor, the community will provide for both fast and creative updates. And yes, in the course of the online season there will certainly be new tasks and races on a regular basis.
Nevertheless, for 20 euros I would have expected more content that would motivate me “out of the box” for longer than just a few hours to explore this wonderfully built theme park.
The conclusion: For whom is Hot Wheels worthwhile?
Hot Wheels takes the great basic framework of Forza Horizon 5 and shifts it into a delightfully wacky roller coaster world. Nothing more, but nothing less either.
If you”ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to loop a tuned Audi R8, then you definitely won”t go wrong with the DLC. The track design is really one of the craziest things I”ve ever experienced in the racing game genre.
If you were expecting a loving implementation of the toy template, I”d recommend Hot Wheels Unleashed, despite the inferior driving physics. It feels much more like making a childhood dream come true. Only this time without the bruises.
Editor”s verdict
Do you love exactly me like that mixture of fascination, awe and dizziness when you look up a new roller coaster for the first time? Then you shouldn”t miss this insane racing theme park in the best sense of the word!
Especially from the bumper or bonnet perspective, you will experience a thrill at breakneck speed that comes damn close to the feeling of sitting on a real roller coaster.
As with a roller coaster, however, the fun is over very quickly. I was really surprised at how few courses and campaign missions there are in Hot Wheels. Also, in terms of licence implementation, there definitely could have been more than four cars and a dry lecture.
Hot Wheels is not a DLC that motivates for weeks. But it”s one that I”m sure I”ll pull out again and again for a few rounds for the adrenaline rush in between. Wheeee!
