In the ten days following its release on November 9, Forza Horizon 5 has been leaving every other game in the dust. Even prior to its official release, the game broke 1 million players, with those purchasing the Premium Edition of the game and Xbox Game Pass subscribers able to participate in early access. Microsoft has just announced that Forza Horizon 5 has seen over 10 million players in ten days, making it the game with the largest first week in both Xbox and Game Pass history. It’s not clear exactly how long that record will last–especially with Halo Infinite‘s free-to-play multiplayer available now and the full game only weeks away–but it’s still hugely impressive.
Within the first week of launch, the game managed to attract over 4.5 million players and held concurrent player sounds over three times higher than those of Forza Horizon 4 in 2018. Playground Games has also pledged to continue adding further accessibility options to the game to make it playable to the widest amount of people. The game is the first to feature sign language support (both ASL and BSL), and also includes game speed modifications, subtitles, text-to-speech options for voice chat, and multiple color blindness options. The studio’s creative director Mike Brown detailed this in a statement.
“We want everyone in the world to be able to experience our game, and with more than an estimated 400 million gamers with disabilities across the globe, it is vital that all players be able to tailor their gameplay in a way that works best for them,” he said.
Since the announcement of this year’s nominees for The Game Awards, the internet has been increasingly furious that Forza Horizon 5 wasn’t nominated for Game of the Year despite its successful launch, commitment to accessibility, and technical prowess.
Forza Horizon 5 is available to play now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
