Wow, step away from my office for an offsite meeting for most of the day and it seems folks are having a meltdown in here about tracks in Forza 2. Sorry I was away -- was not avoiding the issue -- actually I was meeting with marketing and PR on the release schedule of Forza 2 info from now until the release, as well as when to start revealing all the new cars we have in the game with screenshots, videos, etc.
So here's the deal with tracks in FM2... The press release on Xbox.com is correct, for the most part. Forza 2 now has 12 circuit environments with 47 ribbons, meaning that we had to cut 6 environments from our original list.
Why? Well, there are a ton of reasons, but here's something to keep in mind. Forza Motorsport 2 simply isn't Forza 1.5 because the entire game has literally been built from the ground up with a new engine and new tech. This means that all tracks had to be rebuilt from scratch to take advantage of high-def graphics (models, textures, everything). In many cases, track artists had to revisit our real-world tracks to recapture and collect satellite data for to use in new versions of these tracks. What you end up with are tracks that are more detailed, more accurate, and more realistic than anything we've ever done.
But given our resources and our schedule, we knew we had to make compromises. So Dan and his team of designers cut environments that made sense in how they fit in the overall single player career flow, as well as our focus on real-world circuit racing this time around. It sucks, I know. There's no way around the disappointment. I will say though, that the info on Xbox.com is wrong about the 2xFSAA vs. our original 4xFSAA announcement. As of right now, that hasn't changed, and we don't expect it to.
Anyway, at this point, I can offer you a couple points of consolation. First of all, with all of that pre-production legwork to use as a resource, our track artists will continue working on content even after the game ships. DLC for 360 games are fast becoming the standard and for a title like FM2, it's an absolute no-brainer. So what you get on disc certainly won't be the last word.
Secondly, I talked about that meeting I had earlier today with marketing... the good news is that from now until release date, there's going to be a fairly consistent flow of FM2 info each week -- some of it will be granular detailed stuff we geek out about here at FM.net, a lot of it will be big blowout type features we do with other sites on new stuff we haven't announced on the game... and of course, new screens, videos, and hands-on impressions to whet your appetite.
Thanks for reading.