A recent post on the forum site ResetEra has revealed that apparently Microsoft has hired Joseph Rubino to work on the next Forza game. Considering Rubino’s pedigree and history, this might mean that the next Forza Motorsport story mode is going to have more emphasis placed on it than before.
Being a racing game, there’s not really much story to go through in a game like Forza, especially when most players are there to collect cars and race them on a variety of tracks. One can only wonder how Turn 10 Studios aims to make Forza Motorsport more story-driven.
They have, however, chosen a good person for it. Rubino’s work history includes being the director of photography for Grand Theft Auto 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Max Payne 3, and he also was cinematic art director for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
Back in 2018 he joined with Microsoft as a cinematics director as well, and even said on his resume that he was working as the director of a new Forza project that has yet to be announced. This likely the Forza Motorsport story mode that the ResetEra leak was referring to, but who knows if it will actually be good or not.
Many other non-story sports games have attempted to do a similar thing with their own games, such as the past few NBA 2K games having a story mode to start off their Career modes (including a particularly polarizing Spike Lee-directed one in NBA 2K16), and the past several FIFA games following player avatar Alex Hunter as he makes his way through the Premiere, then FIFA leagues.
Reactions to these story modes have been fairly polarized in general, partly because most people just don’t care about them and partially because many of them are accused of being poorly written cash-in attempts. Whether the Forza Motorsport story mode changes things remains to be seen, but we’ll likely find out when that next game is announced.
