Forza Motorsport: Downgrade and Misleading Trailer, Did Turn10 Lie? | Xbox One

The new Forza Motorsport is available six years after the release of the last episode of the series. While reviews of the game are generally good, some players who specialize in the franchise are very disappointed with the details. Some have noted elements that are completely missing from the game, although they were present in the presentation videos. Lie ? Errors? We take stock.

Has Forza Motorsport been downgraded?

Now that Forza Motorsport is available, a lot of comparison videos are starting to appear. Whether it’s comparisons to Gran Turismo 7 or promotional videos for the game, there’s something for everyone.

Some images posted on social media show many differences between Forza Motorsport in the final version compared to what the developers presented in their videos a few months earlier. Was there a graphics downgrade in the game? This is what we will try to see.

One particular video compares the Forza Motorsport gameplay revealed by Turn10 in June 2022 with the final version of the game available a year later. At the time, Chris Esaki insisted on the details included in the Maple Valley track.

Everything you see is new and was captured using photogrammetry and 3D scanning. Advanced rendering and procedural generation techniques give the track a new level of realism.

Chris Esaki June 2022

The comparison video shows that the game is generally consistent with what was presented, but some details are still different:

• The fog present in the forest is not present in the final video, but this may be due to weather conditions.
• Vegetation is present in the background on the hills in the final game, it was not present in disclose.
• In the final version of the game, the details of the track seem less pronounced, and some rough edges are missing.

• Part of the diagram shows that the final game has less vegetation and less of the asphalt texture and cones seen in the video. discloseare missing.

• The grass at the edge of the track is less dense in the final game.
• The rendering of trees at the edge of the track in the final game is less good. The vegetation density is different and the light rendering appears much better in the video. disclose than in the final game.
• The way you use light at night is different. Video disclose The light appears to have real volume, whereas in the final game the effect is flat and less pronounced. Video disclose A fully lit amusement park was also introduced, which was missing from the final game and replaced with marquees.

Other noticeable differences in the video concern the damage. Some scratches and dents on the bodywork are present in the reveal and not in the final game, but it’s difficult to judge these elements without knowing whether the player in the game made the exact same collisions compared to the June 2022 video.

The before/after images may appear to be largely inconsistent with the final game, but upon closer inspection, the damage to the vehicle is quite similar. The difference in rendering is again due to the lighting control, which is not the same in the two videos and appears much more realistic in the trailer. disclose.

Additionally, we don’t know where the sun was positioned when the player took the photo, which could have skewed the comparison in his image on the right. So we ran a test by changing the rendering of light when capturing a player in the final game. After playing around with the contrast and light in the final version of Forza Motorsport (image on the right), we finally came up with the result. in a rendering quite close to the trailer disclose.

Finally, the last notable differences are again in reflections and light, key elements in realistic game rendering. The tree reflection effects on the black hood are also very detailed and smooth.

In the final game, reflections are smaller and more detailed, and highlights are less pronounced. Digital Foundry also mentions that in the final game, environmental reflections on the bodywork run at 30 frames per second.

Does ray tracing keep its promises?

Ray tracing was mentioned very early in the game’s development by the Turn10 teams. An in-depth video on the topic was also released in June 2022 to support this technique, which is about making light and reflection effects more realistic.

Ray tracing is available in the final game. The effects are visible on the body of the vehicles, but something is missing, as Turn10 showed: ray tracing applied to the environment.

Through analysis, Digital Foundry has confirmed that some environmental ray tracing effects are missing from the final game, even on PC. Additionally, the Xbox Series S doesn’t support ray tracing during racing, but that’s not surprising.

Digital Foundry notes that not all of the ray tracing effects detailed in the January 2023 video will ultimately be available in the final game. Turn10 explained that its materials and shaders have been “remastered from scratch to high resolution and optimized for advanced ray tracing capabilities.” In the video, the studio simultaneously showed the image below, in which we see reflections of the environment on a wet surface. As such, this quality of ray tracing is missing from the final game, be it on consoles or PC.

Digital Foundry concludes that Turn10 is very good, but expectations were higher given the promotional videos Microsoft aired to promote the game.

In June 2023, we published an article wondering whether specific light rendering caused by Turn10 would eventually be missing from the game. We then wondered where the ray tracing applied to global illumination went. We talked about an article that was removed by the developers, but which mentioned global illumination using ray tracing.

RTGI, which stands for Ray Traced Global Illumination, was never mentioned again, leading to speculation that Turn10 was no longer using the technique in the game. Instead, the developers only talked about “Real-time ray tracing on the circuit,” clarifying that more about this topic will be discussed before the game launches in October. These details are not being disclosed at this time.

So what ?

In the end, we can say that there are many differences between what Turn10 presented and the final game released upon release. If you can easily miss a few blades of grass that you don’t really notice when you’re trying to pass a competitor at 120 km/h in a chicane, the differences in light rendering and ray tracing seem more important and noticeable. .

It’s normal for a game to evolve during development and for choices to be made along the way. But what the community has criticized Turn10 and Microsoft for on social media is that they focus too much on certain graphical features that are at best rendered worse, if not completely absent, in the final game. Overall the game is still a success, especially on €500 or €300 machines like the Xbox Series S.