It's Time to Say Goodbye to Forza Horizon 4. Game Will Disappear From Stores, but Before That Happens, You Can Buy It Cheaper
Forza Horizon 4 will approach the end of its life this year. The Festival Playlists will stop being refreshed in August, and the game will disappear from stores in December. Although the servers are expected to continue to work, and „exclusive” cars will become available to acquire in a new way.
Given the history of previous series installments disappearing from the market four years after their release, we anticipated this happening in 2022. However, it has been delayed by two years, as has just been revealed. Playground Games announced that Forza Horizon 4 will disappear from digital distribution stores and Game Pass on December 15. DLC sales have been halted today - they are now only available as part of a package with the base game in the Deluxe and Ultimate editions, which are currently offered at historically low prices.
This maneuver stems from the fact that Microsoft made a relatively kind gesture towards people who played FH4 in Game Pass and only paid for the additional content. Anyone who has purchased any DLC for this game and has an active subscription today will receive a key to redeem the full version of Forza Horizon 4 to their Xbox account. However, there is a catch: this doesn't apply to people who joined the service using some kind of discount. The codes are scheduled to be shipped in the coming days.
And what will happen to the game itself? There is no question of shutting down the servers, so all game modes should remain available for years to come. After August 22, however, new Festival Playlists will stop appearing (or rather: the rotation of the current Playlists will be stopped). Thankfully, Playground Games studio won't abandon players who are missing some "exclusive" cars in their collection.
All vehicles that were previously only available as rewards in Playlists will be added to Horizon Backstage. This means that you can unlock them at any time, using passes that you buy for Forzathon points. To obtain the last ones, you will need to participate in Forzathon Live events and complete daily and weekly challenges. This is the only part of the Playlist that will remain active.
The reason for withdrawing the game from sale was given as always: expiring licenses (for cars, music, etc.). Thus, in December, only one installment of the series will be available on the market (not counting Forza Motorsport, but that's a separate branch of the brand). This move can be seen as Microsoft laying the groundwork for the announcement of Forza Horizon 6 - I expect it next year.
