Hot Wheels’ ‘most extreme’ crossover with Forza is here

polygon.com:

Forza Horizon and Hot Wheels team up again starting today in Forza Horizon 5, which adds a fleet of die-cast collectibles and plastic track infrastructure to a new racing hub and the game’s course creation toolkit. Microsoft promises that players have access to more than “80 distinct, snappable track pieces” to build the “most extreme” Hot Wheels course of their dreams.

Announced during Xbox’s week of not-E3 programming, ForzaHorizon 5: Hot Wheels’ map has been visible in-game since the weekend. It takes players into the skies above Mexico to race around four fantasy biomes: Giant’s Canyon, Ice Cauldron, Forest Falls, and Horizon Nexus, where the Horizon Festival is suspended in the space-time fabric of Hot Wheels’ orange tracks.

Anyone with the base game can pick up the Hot Wheels expansion for $19.99. Forza Horizon 5 was a day-and-date launch on Xbox Game Pass back in November. The expansion is also available through the game’s three other premium expansion bundles.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels brings four Hot Wheels-exclusive whips up to life-size: the 2018 Chevy COPO Camaro; the 2012 Bad to the Blade; the 2013 Baja Bone Shaker; and the 2000 Deora II.

They’re joined by six other real-life cars that have been Hot-Wheelsified for the expansion: the 2021 Hennessey Venom F5; the 2019 Brabham BT62; the 2006 Mosier MT900 GT3; the 2020 Sierra Cars Yokohama Alpha No. 23; and the 2018 Subaru WRX STI ARX Supercar.

This is the third time Hot Wheels and Forza Horizon have joined forces; Forza Horizon 3and 4 both had Hot Wheels expansions, which bring life-size versions of the venerable toy franchise into Playground Games’ racing sandbox. Hot Wheels also partnered with Milestone in September 2021 to release Hot Wheels Unleashed, a