When describing why their game has such a huge selection of cars, racing game developer Turn 10 Studios’ content director John Wendl says, “You need three cars: the first car you ever owned, the car you drive right now, and the car that you hope to drive some day.”Most car enthusiasts probably won’t end up with the car of their dreams one day, but the prohibitive cost of driving a Ferrari melts away when your hands are on the controls of Forza Horizon, a game delivering virtual renditions that are painstakingly accurate, reproducing every minute detail of the cars they emulate. In the third installment of our series in collaboration with Kill Screen, we give you a look under the hood at Turn 10, where a deep passion for cars and a healthy obsession with video game design yields the most realistic driving and racing experiences ever.Beyond the look, the cars in Forza Horizon are designed to drive and handle identically to their real-life counterparts. In real life, drivers aren’t “constantly looking at dials,” as Turn10’s creative audio director Nick Wiswell puts it. “He’s using the audible cues around him to let him know how the car is behaving.” That’s why the the paradigm of extreme detail includes the audio, which let a driver know when to shift, how much grip they’ve got on the road, and the severity of a hit in the event of a collision.For those of us who remember the days of Test Drive, racing games have come quite a long way, and remain one of the only real life experiences that we enjoy even more in a game when it’s true to life. No zombies, no magical powers, just rubber, steel, and the twists and turns of the road.If you missed them, watch Kill Screen episodes one and two below.@ImYourKid
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