THE HORIZON FESTIVAL HEADS DOWN UNDER BUT STAYS WELL ON TOP.

Its greatest strength is probably the sheer variety of landscapes, though. Horizon 3 remains dwarfed by the likes of The Crew’s impressively large map, but it packs a pile of vastly different terrains into its Australian backdrop. There’s a quiet coastal town, with its picturesque beaches, and the rolling fields between it and the high-rise, urban metropolis of Surfers Paradise. There’s the damp and dense rainforest carpeted with thick undergrowth around closely packed trees. There’s also rural wine country that gives way to the sparse red dust and isolated farms of the outback. If anything, Horizon 3’s outback zone isn’t really big enough to communicate the sheer vastness of the real thing that I’d yearned for (shelve your hopes of any arrow-straight highways disappearing over the, er, horizon) but it’s nonetheless a noticeable improvement over Horizon 2 where all four corners of the map felt largely similar to each other.

THE VERDICT

Forza Horizon 3 is a masterclass in open-world racing and bigger and better than its excellent predecessor across the board. It looks fantastic, the car selection and customisation is second to none, and the size and variety of the sprawling Australian outback is magnificent. Above all, Horizon 3 never loses sight of the fact that tearing through postcard-perfect locations should be fun, and it puts the tools in our hands to keep it that way, always. This is the racing game I’ve been waiting for, and it's officially my favourite thing on four wheels. A fair dinkum triumph, mates.

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