You start out with a single car, and – in true Horizon fashion – a marker that tasks you with putting your foot down and making it to the main site of the festival.

Leaving the warmer climes of the US, Italy and Australia for the more unpredictable climates of the United Kingdom might seem an odd choice, but this new setting makes for an incredibly diverse place to drive thanks to some welcome new features. It’s a simple concept, but that’s what’s makes Forza Horizon 4 so easy to pick up and so difficult to put down. Just a great big open world full of races to win, cars to buy and challenges to complete. There are no tracks to unlock or licences to complete. Unlike Forza Motorsport – which has long battled Gran Turismo and the likes of Project CARS for the title of best racing simulator – the Forza Horizon series happily trades realism for unabashed fun, and buckets of it, too. Sure, the Forza Motorsport series is still the go-to place for purists who want an experience so realistic they can taste the tang of petrol in the air, but with Forza Horizon 4, developer Playground Games continues to riff on a truly accessible and inclusive racing wonderland.

When the original Forza Horizon casually rolled up onto the scene in 2012, no one really expected it to attract the fan base that it did, but eight years on and four games in, and this breakaway road trip has become one of Microsoft’s most popular and enduring franchises. They’re meant to be unusual curios that take an existing concept in twist it in ways the mainline series never could. Offshoots aren’t meant to surpass their source material.

Can you use horizon for xbox one