Forza Horizon 5 previews its overhauled car engine sound design

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It'll also use ray tracing for advanced audio design

Forza Horizon 5
(Image credit: Playground Games)

Forza Horizon 5 just debuted a brand new preview of in-game car audio.

Just below, you can check out the brief video showcasing how Forza Horizon 5 is going to sound when it launches later this year. Introduced by Playground Games lead audio designer Fraser Strachan, we're treated to right around two minutes' worth of glorious car engines.

Throughout the video after Strachan's brief introduction, we see a handful of different vehicles revving up their engines, demoing just how well Playground Games have designed the car audio for Forza Horizon 5. There's all sorts of cars used for the showcase, including modern power cars and old-school vintage vehicles as well.

In a different showcase earlier this week from the developer, the developers shared more details on how Forza Horizon 5 will use ray tracing technology for its audio. As you can hear for yourself in the detailed video from Playground Games just below, Forza Horizon 5 will use ray tracing to dynamically change engine sounds on the fly, meaning all engines will sound different based on their surrounding environment.

The audio for Forza Horizon 5, and by extension the engine sounds themselves, will render at 90 frames per second. This will allow the new game's sounds to change depending on where you are: for example, engines will sound far different in townscape settings than they would out in the wild among trees, or in extensive tunnels.

Additionally, Forza Horizon 5 will utilize a technology called granular hybrid looping. To break it down, as the developers do in the video just above, this means engines will be drawing from thousands of sound files to sound vastly different at any time throughout the game. Only 15% of vehicles featured in Forza Horizon 5 had this technology, but every single car in the new game boasts this tech.

Forza Horizon 5 launches later this year on November 9, 2021, for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, and will be available on day one through the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. On the graphical side of things, the Xbox Series X can maintain a smooth 60FPS at 4K resolution, while the Xbox Series S runs at 1080p with 60FPS visuals.

For more on all the games launching this year, head over to our new games 2021 guide for more.

Hirun Cryer
Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.