Playground issues some context behind Forza Horizon 5 datamining

pcinvasion.com:

Datamining is nothing new in the world of PC gaming. It often leads to some interesting findings, particularly in the case of unused, and sometimes, unreleased data. Datamining, and its method of discovering what’s meant to be hidden, is the very action that sparked some dialogue surrounding Forza Horizon 5 and its future car roster. After some discoveries made my miners got posted around the net, Playground Games took a moment to add a bit of context to the matter. In short, the team has gotten on the defensive.

The company addressed the concerns in a brief post on the official Forza Support website. Playground squarely answers the question if any files containing the names of unreleased cars means that players should expect to gain access to them in the near future. Its response is an interesting one, with the team stating that due to “development [being an] ongoing process, and as such, things may appear in our game files that are not confirmed.” The answer then continues, stating that “you should not consider anything confirmed as coming to the game until we’ve shared the news on our official channels.”

The answer seems like an attempt to play down suspicions. Vehicles unearthed in Forza Horizon 5‘s data aren’t real yet-to-be-revealed “secrets.” But rather mere data that can potentially be changed at any given time.

At first glance this may come off as being a deflection, but Playground does bring up a pretty irrefutable point. The company has to negotiate licensing deals with manufacturers in order to bring vehicles into its games. It’s for this reason why we’ve seen brands be featured in one release, and then disappear in the next. Take Tesla, for example. The Model S was featured in Forza Horizon 3 back in 2016,