Dan Greenawalt, the creative director at Turn 10 Studios (the same people that make Forza) has confirmed that a new Forza franchise is on the way. In an interview along with Ralph Fulton, the creative director at Playground Games, Greenawalt implied that the series would soon be expanding once again, adding another franchise to its label besides Motorsport and Horizon.
Games like Gran Turismo and Forza have now been following in the footsteps of games like League of Legends, DOTA, Call of Duty, and more as they start to get into eSports with their new upcoming games.
Forza Motorsport 6 Apex and Gran Turismo Sport are both games that have the respective studios gearing up to try and get racing car eSports onto the market, placing multiplayer and good graphics before a career mode.
Both games, with their emphasis on racing and multiplayer, have already gotten pretty much everything they need to make a good eSports challenge; they have multiple race tracks, a variety of fancy cars that each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and a good player base to keep the competitive circuit going.
Racing games can also be seen as more accessible than games like League of Legends and DOTA (not to mention the community is far less toxic.)
All of this might point to a new Forza franchise popping up that could be based in eSports, considering how Forza Horizon is based on street racing while Motorsport is focused on regular racing. Since there’s no other place for a new Forza franchise to go, why not go online, making a multiplayer focused game to hold competitions in?
Gran Turismo Sport also hopes to corner the market on a racing eSports scene before Forza does. If it manages to get onto the scene before Forza really gets going, it could help the series (which has been flagging for several years to other racing games) become revitalized.
