It’s certainly an exciting time for racing fans on PS5, but there are a couple of caveats with Forza Horizon 5’s PS5 launch. First, there’s the kicker. Players have to link a Microsoft account upon starting up the game, a process that other Xbox-to-PlayStation games like Sea of Thieves has required. Unfortunately, there won’t be the added benefit of cross-progression from a PC or Xbox save to PS5. There is cross-play between PC, Xbox, and PS5 versions of the game, though, so that’s nice. On the PlayStation side of things, a PS Plus subscription is required to take part in any of the online features of FH5. When enabled, Forza Horizon 5 allows up to 16 online players at a time in the game world. The multiplayer offerings are rather extensive, ranging from a battle royale mode called The Eliminator to a large suite of mini game challenges from smashing pinatas to zipping around obstacle courses. Forza Horizon 5 has a single player offline mode too, of course, but you won’t be able to engage with the robust auction house or try out other players’ custom tracks, in addition to the aforementioned modes.

I don’t think there’s been a more ideal time to jump into Forza Horizon 5 than now. The game originally released back in 2021 and has benefited from a wealth of updates and fixes. I’m disappointed that the $59.99 base edition of the game on PS5 doesn’t go the distance with the inclusion of the Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure DLCs – those have to be bought separately in addition to the numerous Car Packs. Still, the base package here is staggering. The game includes well over 700 cars and that number goes up past the 800 range when we include DLC, so you’ll not be wanting for variety.

And there’s even more new content to look forward to. The PS5 release of Forza Horizon 5 coincides with a new free content update across the game’s various platforms. Horizon Realms has been positioned as the big central addition with the update. Realms features 11 of the most beloved environments from Forza’s Evolving Worlds seasonal rotation. A new permanent Horizon Stadium Circuit is also coming to the game in addition to the 11 seasonal returning Realms locations.

And for gearheads, there’s a total of eight new vehicles added to the game via update, though four of them (including the exhilarating Lamborghini Revuolto) are rewards for clearing Horizon Realms achievements. The other four cars are from the new Nissan Retro Rides car pack. As with all car packs, there’s a dlc sticker price of $4.99 attached to it.

For PS5 players, the most exciting ‘update’ comes in the form of DualSense support. Turn 10 has confirmed full DualSense and DualSense Edge functionality, with adaptive trigger feel for threshold braking and surface conditions. If it performs like Gran Turismo 7 or The Crew Motorfest, heavy dirt roads will amp up the vibration intensity tenfold and the accelerator and brake pedals will have a realistic tension translating to the triggers.

Luckily for PS5 players, Forza Horizon 5 isn’t the only racing game getting new updates. Gran Turismo 7 is a PlayStation exclusive well and truly anchored to the PS5 and it’s still receiving new updates three years after release. GT7 is currently on its 28th free update. Since its launch back in 2022, hundreds of additional cars and a handful of circuits have been added. The game currently features 532 vehicles and 39 tracks (not counting different configurations).

All of GT7’s content (including all updates) is available free of charge once you’ve bought the game. PlayStation racing fans suddenly find themselves with a nice advantage: access to Sony’s premier exclusive with Gran Turismo 7, as well as the recent Forza Horizon 5 port. It’s wild that in 2025 Sony players have access to one of Xbox’s flagship exclusive racers in addition to Sony’s Gran Turismo juggernaut, but here we are.

Sim racing fans have GT7 and Assetto Corsa to play on PS5, but what about the open world crowd? Well, there’s actually been quite a handful of quality open world racers within the PlayStation ecosystem even before Forza Horizon 5 joined. The Crew Motorfest, while featuring a far smaller map than the The Crew 2‘s vast United States, features the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Maui. What’s impressive is the recently released free Maui update, which adds the new island as well as a range of new Playlist challenges and new vehicles.

Another fun open world racer is Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, a game struggling with its online offerings despite a rich and varied Hong Kong Island map. Despite being hot off the heels of its initial release last year, TDU: SC already has a significant update which includes the Ibiza island map, smaller in scale though it may be from TDU 2‘s Ibiza. Now with Forza Horizon 5, PlayStation racing fans have three marquee open world experiences to test out the world’s fastest and most desirable cars around in.

Kart racing fans have their share of quality games to choose from too, even if Mario Kart isn’t one of them. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a frenetic and fun Mario Kart alternative that uses its PlayStation branded IP to great effect. Team Sonic Racing and the upcoming Sonic Racing Crossworlds provide that same flavor of kart racing fun that the very best in the genre are known for. And then there’s the plethora of third-party arcade racers on PS5. Need for Speed has been oddly silent about a new entry, but NFS Unbound comes highly recommended if you’re into cop chases and real-life car brands with some of the most impressive exhaust sounds in gaming. Hot Wheels Unleashed 1 and 2 are also a ton of fun with the custom track creation and satisfying physics (which even let you fly off the track).

PlayStation’s racing ecosystem is perhaps the strongest in gaming at the moment. The prospect of other Microsoft exclusive racers like Forza Motorsport coming to PlayStation is now highly likely. Sony racing fans now have their pick of Xbox and PS games racing titles to choose from. And what’s more, there’s not a single racing genre underrepresented on PS5. I just wish there would be less of an emphasis on microtransactions and season passes with today’s racing games, but that is an industry-wide issue that exists regardless of console ecosystem. Between their pick of GT7, Assetto Corsa, Forza Horizon 5, The Crew Motorfest, TDU Solar Crown and a wide array of arcade racers, PlayStation players have a veritable buffet of fun driving games to enjoy.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

As per the in-game Hall of Fame in the racer – which tracks every player that has logged into the game at least once – Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels has been played by over a million players since launch. That’s notable in particular because unlike the base game, the Hot Wheels expansion isn’t offered with Game Pass, so these numbers are a much closer approximation of its sales.

As for the base game, as of early June, Forza Horizon 5 had surpassed 20 million players.

In our review of Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels, we awarded it a score of 9/10, saying, “Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels is yet another incredible piece of racing content by Playground Games. There’s easily between 10 to 15 hours of pure, unabashed racing fun in here. It proudly boasts all the many strengths of the game that it’s built off of, of course, but also introduces ridiculous speed, an excellent new map, incredibly fun new tracks and vehicles, and more to deliver what feels like a worthy addition to the Forza Horizon 5 experience.” You can read the full review through here.

Hot Wheels introduces a completely new map. Comprised of three distinct biomes, this entire map floats far above the open world Mexico of Forza Horizon 5, and is, appropriately enough, characterized by a dense tangle of red and blue Hot Wheels tracks running all across it and holding the three floating biomes together. It’s a big map, all things considered, especially when you compare it to, say, Forza Horizon 3’s Hot Wheels DLC. More than size, however, what makes this map stand out is its spectacle.

"Forza Horizon 5 is a gorgeous game, of course, so it’s no surprise that its first expansion continues to be something of a treat for the eyes as well- but on top of its visual fidelity, the Hot Wheels expansion’s new map also pops because of its vibrant sights and sounds."

Forza Horizon 5 is a gorgeous game, of course, so it’s no surprise that its first expansion continues to be something of a treat for the eyes as well- but on top of its visual fidelity, the Hot Wheels expansion’s new map also pops because of its vibrant sights and sounds, its gorgeous tracks and vistas that never fail to invoke a sense of child-like wonder every time you look at them. The three biomes offer plenty of environmental variety with dense forests, snowy landscapes, and rocky deserts, but it’s the oversized, bright, plastic-made tracks themselves that catch the eye almost constantly. Seeing a web of brightly coloured tracks looping and zigging and zagging in the background while you’re driving around is always a striking sight.

The expansion uses those tracks to great effect from a gameplay perspective as well. The name of the game here is speed- that might not be the most noteworthy thing to say about a racing game, but more so than usual, Hot Wheels takes every chance it gets to emphasize its sheer sense of speed. A lot of that is down to the tracks themselves, with things such as water flumes, air boosts, launchers, speed boosts, and more scattered throughout the map to keep kicking you up to breakneck speeds, while things such as massive loops, corkscrews, and more can also naturally help you build momentum and speed. Gravity, in fact, is quite an important consideration a lot of the times in this expansion, which shouldn’t be a surprise if you have ever played with gravity-defying Hot Wheels tracks as a kid.

I am a little disappointed that the events and activities on offer in the new map don’t leverage the new setting and its unique properties more than they do. From speed traps and drift zones and danger signs to sprints and circuits and new Horizon Story missions, the vast, vast bulk of the activities you’ll find in the new open world are very much cut from the same cloth as what the base game had on offer. Instead, I would have preferred it to place greater emphasis on new activities built around ideas specific to this DLC, like, say, more drifting challenges on ice tracks, or challenges focused on maintaining high speeds without crashing or slowing down too much.

"Water flumes, air boosts, launchers, speed boosts, and more are scattered throughout the map to keep kicking you up to breakneck speeds, while things such as massive loops, corkscrews, and more can also naturally help you build momentum and speed."

One new activity that does deserve a shoutout though is the massive piñatas scattered around the map that you have to seek out and pop. Simply finding your way around the loopy roads of the map to find that exact spot where you can pull of that perfect jump to get to a piñata can be incredibly satisfying in and of itself. It’s a lot like smashing bonus boards in essence (and there’s more of those in the expansion as well), but it does have a nice twist to it.

Structurally, Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels takes cues from the base experience as well. There are five separate ranks that the entire expansion is divided into. Starting as a Rookie, you’re tasked with climbing through these ranks and unlocking them and then mastering them one after another, unlocking faster cars and more new events on your way to achieving the Legend rank. Each rank has several large- and small-scale missions that you can track and finish, each of which rewards you with varying points that count toward the completion of that rank.

The missions are an excellent new addition, and they do (to some extent) make up for how the DLC’s activities can often feel too similar to the base game. One mission might task you with getting from one point of the map to another in a certain amount of time, which might sound simple enough- but rather than marking those spots on the map for you, the game expects you to figure out where those spots are yourself, which adds another layer to that mission. Similarly, another mission could task you with completing two distant speed traps within a small window of time, leaving you to figure out what the best and fastest possible route would be to allow that.

"There’s easily between 10 to 15 hours of pure, unabashed racing fun in here."

Even so, the missions can be a bit of a double-edged sword, because they can also make progression in the Hot Wheels expansion feel a little restrictive. Finishing these missions is the only way to earn the points you need to progress through ranks, but while Forza Horizon 5 never forced players to do any one particular thing to be able to make progress, Hot Wheels often funnels you into a narrower pool of options, forcing you to take on a mission you might not particularly want to try simply because there aren’t a great deal of alternatives. Thanks to the core design and mechanical strengths of Forza Horizon 5 and the Hot Wheels expansion, what you end up doing in those missions remains fun either way, but it does still feel markedly less free-form than the base game did.

Even with a few minor issues though, Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels is yet another incredible piece of racing content by Playground Games. There’s easily between 10 to 15 hours of pure, unabashed racing fun in here. It proudly boasts all the many strengths of the game that it’s built off of, of course, but also introduces ridiculous speed, an excellent new map, incredibly fun new tracks and vehicles, and more to deliver what feels like a worthy addition to the Forza Horizon 5 experience.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

Taking to Twitter, the developer shared a top down image showing the entire new map that’ll serve as the expansion’s setting. As Playground has confirmed before, the map floats about the base game’s open world Mexico, and is divided into three separate sections, each a different biome, with each section connected by appropriately loopy Hot Wheels tracks. It looks interesting, to say the least. Check it out below.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels will launch on July 19 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.

Start planning your roadtrip now #FH5HotWheels pic.twitter.com/PuF3GciWqO

— Forza Horizon (@ForzaHorizon) July 16, 2022

However, on July 19th, Forza Horizon 5 will receive its first paid expansion in Hot Wheels. As the name indicates, it adds lots of new Hot Wheels-themed content to the game in the form of new cars, events, and much more. Costing $20 standalone, it’s purchasable as part of the Forza Horizon 5 Premium Add-Ons, the Expansion Bundle or with the game’s Premium Edition.

All of that aside, what should you expect from the new Hot Wheels expansion before it arrives on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC? Let’s take a look at eight things here.

Horizon Hot Wheels Park and New Biomes

The expansion offers a brand new location – the Horizon Hot Wheels Park residing in the clouds above Mexico, as it should. It offers over 200 kilometres of track and its own play space with different activities. You’ll also find various tracks like rumble and ice along with magnet tracks for defying gravity. Four new biomes are introduced – Giant’s Canyon with its rock formations; Forest Falls with its trees and waterfalls; Horizon Nexus with an intricate network of tracks suspending the Festival site; and of course, Ice Cauldron where lava meets the tundra. Each location is “packed with spectacular detail and diversity” so there will be plenty of cool sights to take in.

Hot Wheels Academy

Before hopping into those death-defying new locations, you’ll have to enlist in the new Hot Wheels Academy. As part of the new campaign, players will receive the 2013 Hot Wheels Baja Bone Shaker, a B Class vehicle, and work their way up to better vehicles by completing activities. Eventually, you’ll unlock new X-Class vehicles to add to your already speedy roster.

10 New Cars

Ten new cars are coming with four being Hot Wheels cars scaled up to life-size. There’s the 2018 Chevrolet Hot Wheels COPO Camaro with its 580 horsepower engine and sleek orange finish; the 2012 Hot Wheels Bad to the Blade with a 1000 cc engine capable of delivering a top speed of 230 miles per hour; and the 2021 Hennessey Venom F5 with its 1,817 horsepower and a top speed that goes beyond 311 mph. You also have options like the 2006 Mosler MT900 GT3, 2019 Brabham BT62, 2018 SUBARU WRX STI ARX Supercar, and the timeless 2000 Hot Wheels Deora II among other cars.

It’s also worth noting that those who don’t own the expansion can still earn some new Hot Wheels cars. Three new vehicles – the 2012 Hot Wheels Rip Rod, 1949 Hot Wheels Ford F-5 Dually Custom Hot Rod and the 2005 Hot Wheels Ford Mustang – were recently added to Wheelspins via the recent Series 9 Update. So by simply playing the base game and garnering experience, you can add these to your collection for free.

Hot Wheels Heats Events and Horizon Story

After enlisting into the Hot Wheels Academy, there will be new missions to complete, which will open up new Hot Wheels Heats events. What these offer remains to be seen, but a new Horizon Story spread over five parts is also promised. This will go over the entire history of the model car franchise, and hopefully, it gives players a new appreciation for the same.

New Accolades, Collectibles, and More

It wouldn’t be a new Forza Horizon expansion without other new activities like PR Stunts and collectibles like Floating Pinatas and Bonus Boards. New Accolades are also available to complete, offering some direction for what you should prioritize in your Hot Wheels journey. In addition, there are also new Hot Wheels Seasonal Events which contribute to your Festival Playlist completion. So if you’re looking for something different from the usual Seasonal Events, then this is an acceptable way to mix things up and still earn seasonal rewards.

Free Fast Travel

In the base game, navigating around Mexico can take some time and while fast travel is an option, it will cost you (and requires specific places to travel to). Not only do you have to spend two million Credits to unlock the ability to fast travel anywhere but you also have to smash billboards to reduce the fast travel cost to zero. Thankfully, free fast travel is unlocked from the very start of the Hot Wheels expansion, allowing players to teleport anywhere within the map. No fuss, no muss, and it will help in keeping pace with your friends while playing.

Playable in Co-op from the Start

There’s a good amount of new content to experience but what if you want to play it with friends from the get-go? Well, good news. For the first time, the Hot Wheels expansion is playable from the very beginning in co-op. It’s a good change and allows everyone in your friend circle to maintain the same progress while experiencing everything for the first time together.

Track Designer

Racing is only one part of the Hot Wheels experience. The other is building wicked tracks with loops, jumps and other crazy elements to see how your cars fare. The expansion caters to this by letting you design tracks. By heading to the EventLab, you can utilize more than 80 new track and stunt pieces. The Hot Wheels Creation Kit also provides new props, and everything easily snaps together. Once your track is built, share it with the community and see what they think. Even if building tracks isn’t your forte, this opens the doors for tons of community-created Hot Wheels content to experience on a daily basis.

F1 2022

F1 22 is out in July worldwide for those who didn’t purchase the Champions Edition for early access. Along with the usual 10 teams and 20 drivers, Grand Prixs, and MyTeam and MyDriver Career Modes, there are a bundle of new features in this year’s iteration. Formation Laps and Pit Stops can either be Immersive, with the player in control or automatic; new Sprint Races are now in play on eligible tracks; redesigned cars offer changes to the driving; and VR has been added for the first time ever on PC.

Then there’s F1 Life, a new lifestyle element with clothes to purchase, interior decorating for one’s crib, and Supercars to collect. F1 22 releases on July 1st for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC.

Rune Factory 5 (PC)

Just a few months after finally releasing in the West for Nintendo Switch, Hakama’s Rune Factory 5 is coming to PC on July 13th via Steam. Following Rune Factory 4 Special, the sequel sees the amnesiac protagonist in Rigbarth. After joining SEED, the town defense force, players can set about completing tasks for the townsfolk and help combat growing threats.

There’s farming to be done, monsters to tame, festivals to attend and up to 12 different companions to bond with. The real-time combat is also faster-paced and sleeker-looking while featuring new mechanics like Link Attacks. Though its Switch version was plagued by performance issues, Rune Factory 5 on PC seems to offer consistent 60 FPS performance.

As Dusk Falls

Though first announced in July 2020, As Dusk Falls shone in its recent trailer at the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase. The narrative adventure title starts in Arizona in 1998 with a botched robbery. Two families are involved and throughout two books across decades, one has to make decisions that will affect their fate.

Inspired by the likes of Breaking Bad, Fargo and Dog Day Afternoon, As Dusk Falls also supports multiplayer for up to eight players online and locally (or even a mix of both). It’s out on July 19th for PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S along with Game Pass.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels

Playground Games has been doing an exceptional job with its open-world racing title Forza Horizon 5, releasing new features, updates and cars since its launch last year. On July 19th, it will receive its first paid expansion with Hot Wheels, adding 10 new cars based on the toyline like the 2000 Hot Wheels Deora II. Players can also race and create outrageous tracks from more than 80 pieces. The expansion will be available for Premium Edition, Expansions Bundle and Premium Add-Ons Bundle owners of Forza Horizon 5 on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Arcadegeddon

Illfonic of Predator: Hunting Grounds and Friday the 13th: The Game have something a little different to offer with Arcadegeddon. In early access since July 2021 on PlayStation and PC, the co-op shooter focuses on Gilly, who becomes mixed up with an evil megacorporation to save his beloved arcade. Offering a mix of PvP and PvE, Arcadegeddon sees up to four players battling through evolving stages in various biomes.

The full launch promises new Surge abilities, a new PvP mode, new Gangs and much more. It’s out on July 5th for PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S with cross-platform play supported.

KLONOA Phantasy Reverie Series

The ear-flapping, platforming goodness of Klonoa returns when KLONOA Phantasy Reverie Series launches on July 8th for Xbox One, PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch worldwide. It features remasters of the very first two Klonoa games – Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, which first launched in 1998 for PS One, and Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, which released in 2001 for PS2. The visuals have been significantly revamped, whether it’s the character models or the environments and lighting (for better or worse in some cases).

It also features two-player co-op, difficulty settings – including an Easy Mode which reduces damage taken, grants infinite lives and five health hearts – and runs in 4K/60 FPS.

Loopmancer

While several roguelites embrace various kinds of animated styles, eBrain Studio’s Loopmancer offers realistic 3D visuals to go with its fast-paced action. The setting is Dragon City in 2046 with detective Xiang Zixu investigating the death of a famous journalist. He eventually meets his demise but finds himself back in his apartment, seemingly trapped in a time loop.

With seven stages to explore, over 100 weapons, and various skills and items, players will make different decisions throughout loops to ultimately find a way out. Loopmancer releases on July 13th for PC.

Stray

Cyberpunk adventure Stray releases on July 19th for PS4, PS5 and PC (while also available in the Extra and Premium tiers for PlayStation Plus). As a stray cat in a run-down cybercity inhabited by deteriorating machines, the player’s goal is to reunite with their family. They’re joined by B12, a small drone, and must solve puzzles, gather clues, and platform through environments to progress.

Along the way, there are swarms of Zurks and various hostile drones to avoid. With its gorgeous visuals and setting, and unorthodox protagonist, Stray promises an atmospheric adventure unlike any other.

Digimon Survive

Over four years, multiple delays and a developer change since its initial announcement, Bandai Namco’s Digimon Survive is finally on the verge of release. Part visual novel, part tactical RPG, it follows Takuma Momozuka and his friends as they visit a mysterious temple during Spring Break, discover Digimon and find themselves dragged into another world. The group must look for a way to survive but can also engage in turn-based tactical battles with their Digimon.

Based on one’s decisions, different routes, digivolutions and endings can be unlocked. While not quite like The Quarry in terms of the body count, it’s also possible for characters to die if you make the wrong choice. With about 80 to 100 hours of gameplay promised for all of the routes, Digimon Survive could be a dark horse in terms of RPGs this year. It’s out on July 29th for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PC and Xbox One.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Almost five years after the launch of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the story is finally continuing. MonolithSoft’s Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is out on July 29th for Nintendo Switch as one of the rare games moved up from its original September release. Set in the world of Aionios, with two nations – Keves and Agnus – in constant conflict, it focuses on Noah and Mio. Though opposed to each other, both are off-seers who use flutes to mourn the fallen soldiers. Along with their respective companions, the party embarks on a seemingly common mission to Sword March while a strange threat looms behind the scenes.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 continues the series tradition of open world exploration with stunning locales, dangerous wildlife and numerous quests to partake in. Combat features six party members (along with heroes that can be recruited as a seventh member) with numerous classes, character switching mid-battle, Chains, and much more. The new Interlink system also allows two characters to fuse into a single powerful entity called Ouroboros with a dedicated progress tree.

With compelling characters, a serious story and cool-looking combat, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 may be the series’ best outing yet.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels will bring four new biomes in a new locale set above the open world Mexico of the base game, and these biomes will have plenty of Hot Wheels tracks for players to zip through, including magnetic gravity-defying tracks, ice tracks, rumble tracks, and more. There will also be new Horizon Story missions, PR stunts, several new vehicles, and plenty of new creation and sharing opportunities (all based on Hot Wheels, of course) courtesy of additions to the Event Lab. Check out the extended behind-the-scenes gameplay demonstration below.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels will launch for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on July 19. Meanwhile, next year will also see the launch of the next Forza Motorsport instalment, which is looking like a visual stunner already.

It might not be a surprise thanks to the recent leak, but Forza Horizon 5’s first major expansion has been announced, and just like Forza Horizon 3, it’s Hot Wheels-themed. Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels will take you to the new Horizon Hot Wheels Park in the clouds high above Mexico, where you’ll race across bonkers Hot Wheels tracks, in bonkers Hot Wheels cars, and build, design, and share your own Hot Wheels track creations with over 80 pieces on offer.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels is out on July 19. It will be available on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.