Surely, you must have asked yourself at one point or another why Forza Horizon exists. If you haven’t but you are now, we’ve discovered the reason. The series actually came about because apparently, Xbox rejected a pitch for a Project Gotham Racing reboot way back when. Between you and us, it was probably a very wise decision.
Playground Games studio head, Trevor Williams said he recalled pitching a PGR reboot to Dan Greenawlt, the General Manager at Forza, and Alan Hartman, vice president at Forza. Williams spoke about the situation in a recent interview, saying that although the two men weren’t interested in the PGR project, they did agree on one thing.
“It was one of those stories where the steak turns to ash in your mouth, and I’m thinking, ‘how do we afford the flights home?’,” said Williams. “After five minutes, Alan was like, ‘What would you do with Forza? Where would you take Forza?’ and we pitched what literally became Horizon, almost on a napkin.”
This meeting led to big things for the franchise though because the series would soon split into two forms, one of them being Forza Motorsport and the other Forza Horizon. These two series are highly acclaimed in the racing community and have gone on to deliver some great games, so the decision seemed to be the correct one. That’s not to say that a reboot of Project Gotham Racing wouldn’t have been awesome–it was one of the most popular franchises in the beginning stages of the Xbox.
Nothing has developed for PGR since the last game in 2007 after Bizarre Creations said they would discontinue the series in the wake of the Activision buyout. Microsoft still owns the rights to the PGR IP but due to the success of the Forza series, it will likely be forgotten about and possibly even waived.
There we have it–the reason why Forza Horizon exists. Was it everything you had expected?
