In this review
The big picture
Forza Horizon 5 gives you a beautiful place to drive, an enormous choice of cars and very little reason to take the sensible route. You can enter a race, investigate a challenge or turn toward a road simply because it looks promising. The result is a driving game where “I'll just get there first” is vulnerable to every interesting bend. Your destination may need to develop some patience.
Playground Games' festival interpretation of Mexico arrived on Xbox and PC on 9 November 2021, followed by PS5 on 29 April 2025, with Panic Button working alongside Playground and Turn 10 on that version. Xbox Game Studios publishes it. The attraction is the freedom to collect, tune, compete, create or simply look around. The potential downside is owning so many dream cars that choosing one becomes a small domestic crisis.
Reasons to look closer
Varied terrain gives different cars useful places to go, adjustable assists offer newcomers a manageable starting point, and shared setups let you experiment without acquiring a second qualification in suspension. EventLab extends the built-in activities with custom creations, crossplay connects friends across Xbox, PC and PS5, and two paid expansions offer further directions once the base game's distractions have stopped being quite enough.
A festival doesn't issue a sensible itinerary
The campaign provides challenges and story activities, while the world gives you room to explore between them. That makes Horizon accommodating of different moods. You can arrive with a competitive objective or decide that tonight's achievement will be taking a car somewhere lovely and remembering roughly where you left the road. The game leaves space for both approaches without requiring you to justify the second one to a race engineer.
That breadth won't suit everyone. Players who want a tightly organized sporting career may find the surrounding attractions dilute the sense of purpose. A loose personal plan helps: try one type of car, explore an area or focus on particular races. Otherwise the abundance can become its own delay, with the evening spent deciding which fun thing deserves the honour of being started. A garage can contain an impressive amount of indecision.
Mexico provides several excellent excuses for a detour
Desert, jungle, coastline, cities and mountain terrain give the driving different contexts, with seasons and weather adding variation. This matters beyond the scenery. Changing surfaces and routes provide reasons to reconsider the machine you're bringing, and learning a road can become a small project in itself. A collection is more interesting when its members have somewhere appropriate to stretch their legs, tyres or questionable tuning decisions.
Travel and competition occupying the same world also gives familiar routes a use outside formal events. You can revisit somewhere because you like taking a particular car through it, rather than because another icon instructed you to attend. This is still Mexico reorganized around a car festival, not an everyday portrait of the country. Expect a playful setting with a persistent enthusiasm for motoring. The festival has a volume control somewhere; it seems reluctant to locate it.
The garage is allowed to be half the hobby
Appearance changes, tuning and downloadable community setups give the cars more purpose than sitting in a collection looking expensive. The appealing cycle is simple: choose something, decide what you want it to do and adjust it toward that goal. Shared setups provide an alternative for players who would prefer to drive rather than spend the evening asking whether a number should be slightly different.
EventLab lets players build custom races, challenges and other creations, so the community can contribute more than paintwork. That's valuable flexibility, but accumulating more content isn't automatically the same as enjoying more of it. Getting attached to a few cars can provide a better starting point than treating every missing vehicle as a personal failing. You can appreciate a garage without attempting to become its overworked inventory manager.
Adjust the challenge before blaming the car
Difficulty and driving assists can be changed, alongside controller remapping, customizable subtitles, screen-reader support and game-speed options. Those settings make it easier to find a comfortable entry point. They are worth inspecting directly if you have specific access needs; a list of features can't tell you exactly how a particular setup will work for you. There's no requirement to make a pleasant drive unnecessarily awkward just to impress someone who isn't in the room.
Online co-op and competitive play support crossplay across Xbox, PC and PS5. PC requires a Microsoft account, and PS5 owners must link one during setup; PS5 online play also requires PlayStation Plus. Sort that out before everyone gathers. “I'm nearly ready” has stretched many a group evening into a short documentary about account management.
Choose the right copy, then get distracted
Native versions cover Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PS5, with the Xbox generations supplied through Smart Delivery. Steam Deck is rated Playable, with some controller interactions requiring manual input; that is compatibility with the Windows build, not a native Linux edition. Mac, supported mobile devices, Chromebooks and specific Fire TV models can use Xbox cloud routes, subject to eligible access, subscriptions, regions and connection requirements. Streaming isn't a separate native port.
The Festival Playlist remains active as of October 2026, including the returning Back to the 90's series and its dated weekly rewards. Treat those as optional prompts rather than a reason to clock in. Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure are paid expansions, available separately or in relevant bundles. Start with the base game, find what you enjoy and buy extra roads only when you actually want them. Horizon's strongest invitation is a collection of small automotive ambitions. Pick a car, make a vague plan and allow the first attractive bend to ruin it.
Sources
Information checked on 16 October 2026. Features, platform compatibility and editions can change.
- Xbox: cloud gaming ↗Cloud access requirements and current availability caveats.
- Xbox Wire: supported cloud devices ↗macOS, Android, iOS/iPadOS and ChromeOS browser routes.
- Xbox: cloud gaming on TVs ↗Supported Fire TV models; cloud-only access.
- Steam: Forza Horizon 5 compatibility ↗Current Valve Steam Deck rating: Playable; controller caveat.
- Valve: Steam Deck compatibility ratings ↗Playable category and Proton compatibility context.