“Forza Horizon 6” has received a lot of praise since its launch with its luxurious lineup of more than 550 cars and high-level graphics. However, a recent piece of exposed information has unexpectedly triggered discussions among players. Glass Egg, a studio under Virtuos that is responsible for co-development, recently revealed that they participated in about 90% of the vehicle production in the game, as well as art support for all nine ecological areas.
Behind the 550 vehicles is a super-large collaborative system!
According to Virtuos’ public statement, Glass Egg has long-term cooperation with Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios. This time it is mainly responsible for the production of a large number of vehicle assets and world construction support, and helps maintain the overall picture quality and consistency. This is also the third collaboration between the two parties after “Forza Horizon 4” and “Forza Horizon 5”.
After all, “Forza Horizon 6” has more than 550 vehicles at launch, plus the Japanese map and nine ecological regions. It is almost an impossible task for an internal team to complete all of them independently.
What players are arguing about is not outsourcing, but who should get the credit?
In fact, most players don’t mind outsourcing. What really triggers the discussion is “Who gets the credit?” Some people believe that if 90% of vehicles are produced by collaborative teams, then these external studios should receive more exposure and recognition; but others believe that final integration, supervision and quality control are still the work of Playground Games, so the results still belong to the main development team.
AAA games have long been beyond the scale that one company can independently complete.
In fact, the news of “Forza Horizon 6” this time is more like letting players see the true appearance of the modern game industry. Today’s AAA games often involve hundreds or even thousands of developers. The so-called “development team” is often no longer a single studio, but a global production network. So instead of saying that 90% of the cars in “Forza Horizon 6” are outsourced, it would be better to say that today’s AAA games are often made by everyone together.