Motorsport Heritage
I had been a fan of Forza Motorsport since first playing Forza Motorsport 2. I later went back and bought the original game, and of course I bought every Forza since. I bought all the DLC. I bought the collectors editions with steel cases. I was part of the insider program. Then in 2025 Microsoft unceremoniously killed Forza Motorsport altogether and dissolved Turn 10. It was a painful blow.
I am pleasantly surprised and pleased to see there are still some people playing Forza Motorsport (2023). It is my hope that we can keep Forza Motorsport alive, that it's legacy will not be forgotten. It deserves better than that. I was entertaining the idea of starting Motorsport Heritage as a movement for Forza Motorsport fans to continue playing and discussing the series, to honor its memory and keep it alive. Maybe one day enough interest could return and the series could be resurrected.
Forza Motorsport was once seen as the immitator, as Xbox's Pepsi to PlayStation's Coca-Cola. Then through the Xbox 360 era, with Forza Motorsport 2, 3, and 4, it became the most respected console racing franchise and the benchmark by which all other console racing games were judged; an honor that was previously held by Gran Turismo. Then starting with Forza Motorsport 5 the unrealistic nitpicking and whining took off. Every little gripe from then on became an enormous disaster making the games garbage, allegedly. FM5 started a new hardware generation so it started over with car models built for Xbox One rather than copy-pasting everything from FM4 the way Polyphony Digital copy-pasted a bunch of outdated models for Gran Turismo 5. That was an unforgivable sin, even though GT7 had 400+ cars instead of over 1,000 and that was fine.
I remember when Gran Turismo 5 had cars that all sounded like vacuum cleaners. "It's fine. Masterpiece." GT5 had 220+ cars built for PS3 that looked great, and 800+ cars copy-pasted from PS1, PS2, or PSP, and they looked like crap, but "It's fine. Great game." There was no livery editor in GT5 or GT6. "It's fine." You couldn't just paint your car whatever you wanted. Instead you needed a paint chip from a car of that exact same color so you can show the paint shop what blue looks like. It was a chore and stupid. "It's fine." There was no vehicle damage, whether mechanical or cosmetic. "It's fine." You didn't have dozens of cars in a tight grid for races, but instead eight or ten cars strung out one by one ahead of you like a long parade instead of proper races. "That's fine. Love it." I remember GT7 suddenly had ridiculous bouncing car physics with cars bunny-hopping everywhere. "No big deal. Masterpiece."
With Forza Motorsport, on the other hand, any little thing was the end of the world and rendered the game unplayable garbage. Sure, it wasn't perfection, but anything can be better. Forza Motorsport still sure as heck wasn't garbage. I'd still have played it over Gran Turismo any day, and I did. Don't get me wrong. There's things I like about Gran Turismo. I'm just comparing to it to make a point. It had plenty of big, glaring flaws and shortcomings, but only Forza Motorsport got crucified for its gripes. It deserved better.
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