The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Choose Forza Horizon 5 if you want a large Mexico map, freeform exploration, many types of activities, user-created events and a broad selection of online modes. Choose The Crew Motorfest if you prefer Hawaii, short themed campaigns that tell you what to do next, and an actively promoted seasonal roadmap. Neither is objectively the better racer; the right choice depends on how you like to spend a session.
The quick decision
These games share the open-world driving format, but they organize that freedom differently. Forza Horizon 5 gives you a broad sandbox: you can roam Mexico, jump between stories and challenges, join cooperative or competitive events, or build your own races with EventLab. The Crew Motorfest is more curated. Its Playlists group races, events and challenges around a car-culture theme, creating shorter routes through the available content.
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| If you care most about… | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Freeform exploration and changing activities | Forza Horizon 5 | Its Mexico campaign, expeditions, stories, social events and online modes support self-directed play. |
| Short, themed campaigns | The Crew Motorfest | Playlists provide a clear sequence of races and challenges built around a particular car culture. |
| Creating and sharing your own events | Forza Horizon 5 | EventLab lets players make races, stunts, challenges and other modes. |
| A Hawaiian setting | The Crew Motorfest | Its open world is based in Hawaii, with urban and off-road environments. |
| Continuing seasonal additions | The Crew Motorfest | Ubisoft currently promotes Year 4 plans and Season 11 content. |
| A mature mix of online activities | Forza Horizon 5 | Official listings include Horizon Arcade, Horizon Tour, Horizon Open, Hide & Seek and Horizon Realms. |
This is a fit-based recommendation, not a ranking based on player counts, review averages or a laboratory performance test. No published independent, like-for-like comparison establishes a winner for handling, performance or player preference.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsHow the two open worlds differ
Forza Horizon 5: Mexico as a flexible playground
Forza Horizon 5 is set in Mexico and is designed around movement between distinct landscapes. Xbox describes changing seasons and weather, a campaign with hundreds of challenges, and Horizon Story missions. The map is not just a route between races: expeditions and free exploration are part of the progression loop, so you can switch from a structured objective to spontaneous driving without leaving the main world.
#1 Best Overall
![Forza Horizon 5 – Premium Edition – Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows [Digital Code]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51SeBIPzMvL._SL160_.jpg)
- REDEMPTION INSTRUCTIONS: Go to "Your Orders" and click "View Order" to receive install code. Xbox: Microsoft Store App --> Redeem --> Input code. Window: Xbox App --> Store --> Redeem --> Input code.
- The Premium Edition includes the Welcome Pack, Car Pass, VIP Membership, Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels expansion, and Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure expansion.
- NEW RALLY ADVENTURE EXPANSION - Drive purpose-built rally monsters and conquer the rugged Sierra Nueva. Feel the intensity of massive dust trails and deformable roads in 10 new cars. Play on March 29th, 2023.
- Explore a world of striking contrast and beauty. Discover living deserts, lush jungles, historic cities, hidden ruins, pristine beaches, vast canyons, and a towering snow-capped volcano.
- Take on awe-inspiring weather events such as towering dust storms and intense tropical storms as Mexico’s unique, dynamic seasons change the world every week. Keep coming back for new events, rewards, and new areas to explore.
The setting is a practical advantage if you want variety during a single session. You can use the same garage for road racing, dirt routes, stunt-focused activities and social events, then return to free driving whenever you want. Seasonal and weather changes also alter the atmosphere of familiar roads. The official descriptions establish those systems, but they do not provide a standardized measurement of map size or driving distance, so comparisons based on square kilometres or completion time would be speculation.
The Crew Motorfest: Hawaii as a themed tour
Motorfest uses an open Hawaiian world with city streets, rural roads and off-road routes. Ubisoft presents it as a place where different car cultures can be explored through tailored events. The landscape is therefore part of the game’s identity: choose it if the idea of driving through Hawaii appeals more than a Mexican setting, regardless of which title has more vehicles or activities.
Motorfest’s world is closely tied to its Playlists. Instead of asking you to discover every activity type on your own, each Playlist introduces a theme and supplies a run of races, events and challenges. This structure can make a short play session feel purposeful. It can also feel restrictive if you would rather ignore the suggested theme and assemble your own itinerary.
Campaign structure: open-ended progression versus curated Playlists
How Forza’s campaign works
Forza’s campaign is a collection of challenges, Horizon Stories and expeditions rather than one narrow sequence. You can pursue the activities that interest you, unlock more of the Horizon festival experience and move between different disciplines. Because the campaign is not built around one mandatory route, it suits players who dislike being told which event must come next.
- Best for: players who alternate between race types, exploration, stories and social events.
- Potential drawback: the breadth can make the next objective less obvious if you prefer a tightly signposted campaign.
- Long-term appeal: the large mix of official and player-created activities gives you reasons to return after the main challenges.
How Motorfest’s Playlists work
Ubisoft describes Playlists as “a series of short thematic campaigns offering unique and exciting car culture experiences.” In practical terms, a Playlist groups its races, themed events and challenges around a concept, giving you a defined mini-campaign. This is useful when you have limited time or want to sample a specific style of car culture without committing to a long career mode.
- Best for: players who want a clear theme and a manageable list of objectives.
- Potential drawback: the curated route offers less of the spontaneous, build-your-own structure that defines Forza.
- Long-term appeal: new seasonal additions can refresh the set of available themes and events.
The choice is not simply between a large game and a small one. It is between two ways of organizing a large amount of driving content: Forza puts more responsibility on you to choose, while Motorfest packages more of its content into guided themes.
Rank #2
- Lead breathtaking expeditions across the vibrant and ever-evolving open world landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars.
- Explore a world of striking contrast and beauty. Discover living deserts, lush jungles, historic cities, hidden ruins, pristine beaches, vast canyons, and a towering snow-capped volcano.
- Immerse yourself in a deep campaign with hundreds of challenges that reward you for engaging in the activities you love. Meet new characters and choose the outcomes of their Horizon Story missions.
- Take on awe-inspiring weather events such as towering dust storms and intense tropical storms as Mexico’s unique, dynamic seasons change the world every week. Keep coming back for new events, challenges, collectibles, and rewards, and new areas to explore. No two seasons will ever be the same.
Activities, creation and social play
Forza’s activity range
The official Forza product information lists Horizon Arcade cooperative challenges, Horizon Tour, Horizon Open modes, Hide & Seek, Horizon Realms and EventLab. That range matters because it supports several different reasons to launch the game:
- Solo progression: campaign challenges, expeditions and Horizon Story missions.
- Cooperation: Horizon Arcade and Horizon Tour provide organized ways to drive with other players.
- Competition: Horizon Open supplies online competitive formats.
- Creative play: EventLab supports player-created races, stunts, challenges and modes.
- Exploration of new content: Horizon Realms and the broader catalogue of player-made events add alternatives to the core campaign.
EventLab is the decisive feature if you enjoy designing rather than merely consuming content. You can build an event with your own route and rules, then share it. The existence of the tool does not guarantee that every creation is polished or balanced; the value is the volume and variety of experiments available to players.
Motorfest’s themed events and seasonal flow
Motorfest concentrates its content around Playlist races, events and challenges. That makes it easier to understand what a particular session is about: select a theme, complete its activities and move to another. Ubisoft’s current product page also promotes an ongoing Year 4 plan and Season 11, so the game is being presented as a live service with additions beyond its launch content.
Choose this approach if you enjoy returning for a new season or following a curated set of objectives. If your priority is making your own race formats, Ubisoft’s current product information does not list a Motorfest equivalent to Forza’s EventLab, so Forza is the safer choice for that specific requirement.
Driving feel: what can and cannot be concluded
Handling is often the deciding factor, but the evidence here is qualitative rather than measured. A comparison by Philipp Briel for Red Bull, published November 7, 2023, judged Forza Horizon 5 to have “the more realistic driving behaviour and more precise handling.” The same article said Motorfest had improved substantially over its predecessor and felt authentic, while still being less realistic than Forza in that author’s view.
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Those observations are editorial impressions from 2023, not instrumented tests of lap times, controller latency, physics accuracy or frame-rate stability. Both games have received updates since that comparison, so you should not treat its conclusion as a current benchmark. Use it as a directional clue:
Rank #3
- Seasons change everything. For the first time in the racing and driving genre, experience dynamic seasons in a shared open-world. Explore beautiful scenery, collect over 450 cars, and become a Horizon Superstar in historic Britain. (Some cars provided by online update.
- Britain like you’ve never seen it. Discover lakes, valleys, castles, and breathtaking scenery all in spectacular native 4K and HDR on Xbox One X and Windows 10.
- Master driving in all seasons. Explore a changing world through dry, wet, muddy, snowy, and icy conditions.
- New content every week. Every week, a new season change brings new themed content, gameplay, challenges, and rewards.
- Go it alone or team up. Play solo or cooperatively. Join team multiplayer for casual fun or ranked teams to take on the best in the world. Xbox live gold (sold separately) required for online multiplayer on Xbox consoles.
- Pick Forza if precise, realism-leaning handling is your first priority.
- Pick Motorfest if you value accessible arcade-style driving and its themed structure more than a realism comparison.
- If handling determines the purchase, watch current gameplay on your target platform or use a trial, demo or subscription access where available.
Controller settings, assists, camera choice and vehicle class can change how either game feels. A statement that one title is “more realistic” does not mean every car, surface or player will experience a dramatic difference.
Cars, updates and what the headline numbers mean
Forza’s update history
Forza’s official product page reports more than 40 content updates. This is a publisher product-history figure accessed in 2026, not an independent count of equally sized expansions or a guarantee about future support. It does show that the game has received a substantial stream of post-launch additions.
Motorfest’s vehicle and roadmap claims
Ubisoft’s current page advertises more than 800 vehicles to discover. That is Ubisoft’s marketing figure and should not be read as a like-for-like comparison with Forza’s garage: counting methods, vehicle variants and the date of measurement may differ. A larger headline roster does not tell you whether the specific cars you want are available, how they are obtained or how they perform.
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Motorfest’s same page promotes Year 4 and Season 11 content. Seasonal roadmaps can change, and the page’s current plan should be checked before purchase if future additions are central to your decision. Forza’s more-than-40-updates statement is historical; Motorfest’s Year 4 and Season 11 references describe a current roadmap. They are not equivalent statistics.
Moving a collection from The Crew 2
Ubisoft says that almost all vehicles unlocked in The Crew 2 can be imported into Motorfest for free. This is a major reason for existing The Crew players to choose Motorfest: your previous collection can reduce the feeling of starting over.
“Almost all” is an important limitation. Ubisoft does not describe the claim as every vehicle, and Ubisoft’s published information does not enumerate exceptions or explain the exact import screen. Before relying on the feature, check the current in-game instructions and confirm that the vehicles you care about qualify. The claim does not imply that progress, currencies or upgrades transfer in the same way.
Rank #4
- Lead breathtaking expeditions across the vibrant and ever-evolving open world landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars.
- Explore a world of striking contrast and beauty. Discover living deserts, lush jungles, historic cities, hidden ruins, pristine beaches, vast canyons, and a towering snow-capped volcano.
- Immerse yourself in a deep campaign with hundreds of challenges that reward you for engaging in the activities you love. Meet new characters and choose the outcomes of their Horizon Story missions.
- Take on awe-inspiring weather events such as towering dust storms and intense tropical storms as Mexico’s unique, dynamic seasons change the world every week. Keep coming back for new events, challenges, collectibles, and rewards, and new areas to explore. No two seasons will ever be the same.
- Play on Xbox Series X and Xbox One consoles. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, download and play it directly on your Xbox console or Windows 10 PC.
Platforms, editions and multiplayer checks
Forza Horizon 5 platforms
Xbox’s US listing identifies Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC and Steam. It also says Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can stream the game across devices. The same listing describes Standard, Deluxe and Premium editions:
| Edition | Listed contents | What to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Full game. | Current local price, platform entitlement and any subscription access. |
| Deluxe | Full game and Car Pass. | Whether the Car Pass content and edition name match your storefront. |
| Premium | Full game, Welcome Pack, Car Pass, VIP Membership and two expansions. | Which expansions are included on the current listing and whether the offer is regional. |
Edition contents can change on live store pages, so treat the table as the contents described by the cited US listing rather than a universal promise for every market.
The Crew Motorfest platforms and editions
Ubisoft lists PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2. Its current page promotes Headliners and Grand Garage editions, with downloadable content packs or a vehicle bundle described on that page. Ubisoft also warns that content can vary by region.
Do not assume that a named edition contains the same bonuses on every platform. Open the store listing for your country, select the exact console or PC version, and read the included-content section before paying.
Playing with friends
Both games include multiplayer-related features, but current platform listings do not establish every cross-play rule, account requirement or online-service condition for every platform combination. If you are buying to play with specific friends, confirm all of the following on the current platform listings:
- Whether your platforms can join the same session.
- Whether cross-play is enabled by default or requires an account setting.
- Whether a platform subscription is required for online console play.
- Whether the edition includes the same downloadable content as your friends’ editions.
Wheel and peripheral support
A racing wheel and pedals can make either game more appealing to simulation-minded players, but compatibility is not universal. Ubisoft Help provides information about steering-wheel integration and supported peripherals for Motorfest. That establishes that wheel support exists, not that every wheel works on every platform.
Best Value
- PREMIUM UPGRADE — Includes VIP Membership, Welcome Pack, Time Attack Car Pack, Car Pass, Italian Passion Car Pack, and two Premium Expansions. Requires Forza Horizon 6 base game or Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
- VIP MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS — Enjoy a 2x Credit boost to race rewards, 3 VIP-Exclusive Forza Edition cars, a weekly bonus Super Wheelspin, and special Vanity Items.
- WELCOME PACK — Features 5 special pre-tuned cars and a Car Voucher, which can be used to claim any car available from the Autoshow.
- TIME ATTACK CAR PACK — Receive 8 legendary cars ideal for mastering every turn and corner at the Time Attack Circuits located around Japan.
- ITALIAN PASSION CAR PACK — Introduces 4 great new Italian cars in Forza Horizon 6 post-launch, perfect for cruising, racing, or exploring.
Before buying a device, check the manufacturer’s compatibility list for the exact console or PC operating system and the game version you plan to use. Also verify whether force feedback, button mapping and pedal calibration are supported. Do not infer Forza compatibility from Motorfest’s support information, or vice versa.
Which game fits your play style?
Choose Forza Horizon 5 when…
- You want to explore Mexico without following a fixed campaign order.
- You move between road, dirt, stunt, story and social activities in the same session.
- You want to create and share custom races, challenges or modes through EventLab.
- You expect to spend time in Horizon Arcade, Horizon Tour, Horizon Open, Hide & Seek or Horizon Realms.
- You prefer the more precise, realism-leaning handling described by the 2023 Red Bull comparison.
- You already use Xbox, Windows PC or Steam, or have Game Pass Ultimate streaming access.
Choose The Crew Motorfest when…
- Hawaii is the setting you would rather explore.
- You prefer short campaigns with a theme, a defined sequence and a clear endpoint.
- You like car-culture concepts that shape the races and challenges in each Playlist.
- You want an actively promoted seasonal roadmap, including the current Year 4 and Season 11 plans.
- You already own vehicles in The Crew 2 and want to investigate the free import option.
- Your preferred platform is PlayStation, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox or PC and the local listing offers the edition you need.
When neither is an automatic choice
If your only criterion is “which has more cars,” the available figures cannot answer it fairly. Ubisoft’s more-than-800-vehicle claim and Forza’s update count measure different things, and neither establishes the number of equivalent, currently obtainable vehicles. If your only criterion is “which has better handling,” the available comparison is a dated editorial judgment rather than a current test. In both cases, identify the exact cars, activities and platform features you need instead of relying on a headline number.
A practical buying checklist
- Choose your setting. Decide whether Mexico’s varied biomes and changing seasons or Hawaii’s urban and off-road landscape is more appealing for hundreds of drives.
- Choose your session structure. Select Forza for a self-directed activity mix; select Motorfest for Playlist-based themes and shorter guided campaigns.
- Check your creative ambitions. If building custom events is essential, Forza’s EventLab is the documented option in this comparison.
- List the modes you will actually play. Forza’s official list includes Horizon Arcade, Horizon Tour, Horizon Open, Hide & Seek and Horizon Realms. Motorfest’s documented emphasis is on Playlists and seasonal additions.
- Confirm the platform. Match the exact console, PC storefront or streaming method to the current product page.
- Compare edition contents locally. Read the live listing for your region; do not assume US Xbox contents or Ubisoft’s regional offer applies everywhere.
- Check multiplayer requirements. Verify cross-play, online subscriptions and account requirements for the platforms your group uses.
- Consider existing ownership. The Crew 2 owners should check which vehicles qualify for Motorfest import before treating the feature as a deciding benefit.
- Test handling if it is decisive. Use current gameplay or available trial access, because the cited handling comparison dates from November 2023 and both games have changed.
Verdict
Forza Horizon 5 is the stronger all-round recommendation for players who want maximum freedom: its Mexico map, broad activity mix, EventLab creation tools and documented online modes let you decide what the game becomes from session to session. It is also the better fit if precise handling is more important to you than a guided campaign, while recognizing that the handling assessment comes from a 2023 editorial comparison rather than a current laboratory test.
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The Crew Motorfest is the better choice for a player who wants Hawaii, compact thematic campaigns and a live seasonal direction. Its Playlists remove some of the decision overhead that can accompany a huge sandbox, and The Crew 2 owners may value the possibility of importing almost all unlocked vehicles at no charge. Verify the current Year 4 and Season 11 details, local edition contents and platform support before purchase.
In one sentence: buy Forza Horizon 5 for a flexible open-world toolbox; buy The Crew Motorfest for a themed Hawaiian tour that keeps adding seasonal stops.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
