Through an announcement tweet on the Forza Horizon dedicated official account, Turn 10 just teased the addition of the official car to the Extreme E series, the Spark ODYSSEY 21, advertising more details to be unveiled this Monday during a livestream on Twitch
Extreme E is a rally raid championship, built and promoted by the Formula E creators. It features a spec chassis, battery, ECU and suspension, with each team being granted freedom on a few body panels, lights, and engine if they wish to supply their own instead of the provided by default power unit, which is the same as featured in Formula E.
We can assume the version featured in Forza Horizon 5 will be the default package ODYSSEY 21, as evidenced by the teaser picture, with the 400 kW (550 bhp) all electric powertrain pulling a total weight of 1780kg.
We can wonder if the licensing deal includes an exclusivity clause, or if things remains open for other racing games. As Extreme E is struggling to gain popularity and find a public, keeping more options available to promote the series would probably be the instinctive choice for most, but at the same time, the amount of racing games in which the addition of this car would make sense seems low.
The ODYSSEY 21 wouldn't really fit into circuit racing dedicated titles, so that basically leaves iRacing, Gran Turismo and rally games, but they all have cons. iRacing's playerbase is limited, and taps in a niche of people who probably already know Extreme E exists. Gran Turismo's rally aspect is weak at best, and the studio is known for taking months to just build a 3D car model. As for the rally games of this year, WRC supports a competing motorsport license. This leaves the upcoming Dakar Desert Rally as the last potential match, as Spark's Extreme E machine has run the famous race, but no evidence of it being featured in this game exist yet, which seems a bit surprising.
Giving the license to Turn10 is definitely a sensible move though: at the moment, there's no other game than Forza Horizon to provide a freeroam desertic area to enjoy that vehicle in the conditions it was built to tackle, and it reaches a sizeable public who's not necessarily aware of new motorsport series or involved with real life racing too much. And with Forza Motorsport 8 coming next year, that's a major title release which could feature Extreme E machinery and bring new eyes onto the series.
Extreme E is a rally raid championship, built and promoted by the Formula E creators. It features a spec chassis, battery, ECU and suspension, with each team being granted freedom on a few body panels, lights, and engine if they wish to supply their own instead of the provided by default power unit, which is the same as featured in Formula E.
We can assume the version featured in Forza Horizon 5 will be the default package ODYSSEY 21, as evidenced by the teaser picture, with the 400 kW (550 bhp) all electric powertrain pulling a total weight of 1780kg.
We can wonder if the licensing deal includes an exclusivity clause, or if things remains open for other racing games. As Extreme E is struggling to gain popularity and find a public, keeping more options available to promote the series would probably be the instinctive choice for most, but at the same time, the amount of racing games in which the addition of this car would make sense seems low.
The ODYSSEY 21 wouldn't really fit into circuit racing dedicated titles, so that basically leaves iRacing, Gran Turismo and rally games, but they all have cons. iRacing's playerbase is limited, and taps in a niche of people who probably already know Extreme E exists. Gran Turismo's rally aspect is weak at best, and the studio is known for taking months to just build a 3D car model. As for the rally games of this year, WRC supports a competing motorsport license. This leaves the upcoming Dakar Desert Rally as the last potential match, as Spark's Extreme E machine has run the famous race, but no evidence of it being featured in this game exist yet, which seems a bit surprising.
Giving the license to Turn10 is definitely a sensible move though: at the moment, there's no other game than Forza Horizon to provide a freeroam desertic area to enjoy that vehicle in the conditions it was built to tackle, and it reaches a sizeable public who's not necessarily aware of new motorsport series or involved with real life racing too much. And with Forza Motorsport 8 coming next year, that's a major title release which could feature Extreme E machinery and bring new eyes onto the series.
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