Today is the day! All of us here at Playground Games are excited to welcome you to Sierra Nueva as you begin your Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure. Play it today on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC on Windows and Steam, and Cloud Gaming (Beta).

Ready to jump in? If you already own the Forza Horizon 5 Premium Add-Ons Bundle, Premium Edition, or Expansions Bundle, you’re all set to begin playing. Simply download the latest Forza Horizon 5 series update and the Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure expansion from the Microsoft Store or Steam. For those of you who do not yet own Forza Horizon 5, all versions of the game are now 40% off the full price on the Microsoft Store and Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1613281/Forza_Horizon_5_Rally_Adventure/?snr=1_5_9__405

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/21685/Forza_Horizon_5_Premium_AddOns_Bundle/?snr=1_5_9__403



As noted above, to play Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure you will need to download both the latest game update and the expansion separately. Once installed, you can load into the game and begin the Horizon Badlands Expedition by accessing the Rally Adventure icon on the northwest coast of the game map in Dunas Blancas.



Players who are brand-new to Forza Horizon 5 will need to complete the initial experience of the base game before travelling to Sierra Nueva. This includes the first drive to the Horizon Festival, the creation of your character and selecting a starter car, the first Showcase Event featuring the Cargo Plane, and completing either of the first two available Horizon Story chapters.

Once the Horizon Badlands Expedition is completed, you can access the Sierra Nueva map through the Pause Menu at any time. Fast Travel is free and immediately available to those who own the Buenas Vistas Player House in Mexico. Players have access to their full garage in Sierra Nueva and can begin exploring the new map and career in their favorite cars without any class restrictions.


Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure introduces players to an all-new rally career. In the first hour of gameplay, familiarize yourself with all three rally teams as you get a flavor of asphalt, dirt and night racing in Sierra Nueva. Each team has a dedicated captain who will be your co-driver in events.



Captained by Alejandra, the Apex Predators are all about the asphalt in Road Rally. Alex leads the Horizon Raptors ready to kick up the dust in Dirt Rally. Finally, as the Grit Reapers ambassador, Ramiro will put that dramatic helicopter spotlight to use in Night Rally.

Once you’ve experienced the first rally of all three teams, you’ll choose your starter team. Each unlocks new events and challenges, featuring a dedicated progression tree with nine Reputation Ranks and unique rewards. Completion of Reputation Challenges will contribute to unlocking new events, rewards and the invites to join the other rally teams.



Once Reputation Rank 8 and eight race victories have been achieved in each team’s career, the associated head-to-head Ambassador Race is unlocked. Beating the team captain rewards the player with their car, while winning all three unlocks the Horizon Badlands Goliath, where you can race to become the Horizon Rally Champion and drive home in the all-electric 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum.


Sierra Nueva introduces several new biomes to explore including the town of Pueblo Artza, a huge Abandoned Quarry perfect for some Gymkhana action, epic deformable Sand Dunes, the tight and twisting Desert Gorge, rolling Green Hills, and an entirely smashable Palm Forest. You’ll even find the remote village of Cráteres Secos nestled into a breathtaking crater! These biomes will change every week as seasonal rotations occur and bring new weather changes, just like on Mexico.



With a great mix of asphalt and off-road tracks, Sierra Nueva features a drivable area of 6.25 miles squared – that's 16.2km squared – with 38 miles (61km) of roads full of unpredictable adverse-camber turns, blind crests and thrilling asphalt jumps. For a closer look at the environments of Sierra Nueva, check out our deep dive here of each biome. Now let’s explore the improved deformation technology in Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure.

Over the years rally drivers have put Sierra Nueva through its pace and this is nowhere better reflected than in the rugged deformable sand roads interwoven with pre-deformed tire tracks. As deformable surfaces are driven over repeatedly, they accrue multiple tire tracks and trails. Tire tread is visible in these deformed tracks while the deformation-width is adjusted based on the car’s speed, tire size and steering angle.



Meanwhile, sand trails kicked up by vehicles can be seen in the far distance, so you can spot the work of other drivers that are miles away! It also persists for longer with shadows and camera-lens accumulation as you drive through it. These dust plumes are physics-driven and result in the most complex weather effect in a Forza Horizon game.


All events in Sierra Nueva feature two distinct flavors of off-road racing: Horizon Rally and Horizon Race. Both modes do not enforce car restrictions.



Horizon Rally is a race against the clock. Follow your co-driver's pace notes and drive as fast as possible through the four split gates that are placed at around each 20% interval of the track. The co-driver is on standby from the Horizon Rally Helicopter, which dynamically follows the car and provides audio-visual callouts like upcoming turn and obstacle alerts. Hold up, did they say Chicken?

Each split-gate crossed is accompanied by a notification to highlight where you’re currently positioned on the leaderboard stage. Here's how to interpret these colors:

• Red: You have lost a position relative to other competitors.
  
• Orange: You have maintained your position.
  
• Green: You have improved your position.
  
• Light Green: You are in first place.

Horizon Rally events can be played in co-op with collisions disabled. For a more immersive rally experience, disable the Rally Driving Line option in the driving assists menu. This separate toggle only applies to Horizon Rally events. You can also further spruce up the challenge by increasing the AI difficulty or the PI class of your car.



Secondly, there’s Horizon Race – the racing action you already know and love from the Horizon Festival. Only this time, you’re taking on a pack of rally drivers on the thrilling roads of Sierra Nueva. Race against Drivatars or other players with collisions enabled. This mode does not feature the co-driver or helicopter.


Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure features the largest number of racing events of any Horizon expansion, and in Sierra Nueva, this means the most thrilling routes in Horizon history, so buckle up.



Here’s a look at the new Horizon Rally and Horizon Race events with all routes also supported in Rivals:

• Road Racing: 8 Apex Predators tracks.
  
• Dirt Racing: 8 Horizon Raptors tracks.
  
• Mixed Surface (Night only): 8 Grit Reapers tracks.
  
• Head-to-Head: 3 Ambassador Races with mixed surface cross-country events.
  
• Goliath Race featuring a mix of asphalt and dirt surfaces.

Here’s the breakdown of the 20 new PR Stunts:

• 5 Speed Traps: Unlocked through Apex Predators.
  
• 5 Speed Zones: Unlocked through Apex Predators.
  
• 5 Danger Signs: Unlocked through Horizon Raptors.
  
• 5 Drift Zones: Unlocked through Grit Reapers.

With the Midnights at Horizon series, new Rally Adventure events will be added to the Festival Playlist. These will include a Seasonal Championship and PR Stunt every week and are unlocked upon completion of the Horizon Badlands Goliath.



Look out for new smashable objects in Sierra Nueva including the Horizon Raptors Pinata Trucks at day and the Grit Reapers Crates at night, both of which respawn, as well as the Apex Predators Promotion Boards. There are 30 of these scattered around the map and they do not respawn once smashed!


Horizon Open, Horizon Tour and Rivals are all available to enjoy in Sierra Nueva. Join a Horizon Open or Rivals event through the Rally Adventure tab in the Pause Menu. Go to the Horizon Tour icon located in the center-right area of the map to team-up with fellow players and race a team of Drivatars.



Horizon Open features available in Sierra Nueva include Badges, Open Racing, Custom Racing and Leaderboards. The custom filters include Road and Dirt with class options for Any, S2, S1, A, and B. All the Rally Adventure routes mentioned above are present in Horizon Open.


New features introduced in the Midnights at Horizon series update – available free for all Forza Horizon 5 players – allow you to build the rally machine of your wildest dreams.



Look out for all-new rally parts and body kits, adjustable Tire Profile Size on select vehicles to fit massive wheel arches, and an anti-lag system that delivers more power to turbocharged engines while producing spectacular flame effects and fire-cracker audio. Players can also enable launch control as a new driving assist to ensure a perfect start in both rally and drag racing!

Over in the EventLab Blueprint Builder, we’ve introduced new objects including branded barriers, flags and civilian vehicles, allowing you to build races that capture the look and feel of a Horizon Rally event!




Between its challenging roads and epic dust kick-up, we’ve designed every mile of Sierra Nueva to be incredibly fun and exciting. We can’t wait for you to embark on your Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure. Get it today on the Microsoft Store or Steam if you haven’t already, and we’ll see you at the Horizon Badlands Festival!

Hello everyone,

We're almost ready to release the 13.0 "Refracted Reality" update! Before we publish it, we will be hosting a beta version for our Patreons, starting in April.

Not only will players have access to new features and improvements, but the lighting system has been completely overhauled. This completely changes the atmosphere of the game, giving players a whole new experience.

The 13.0 ‘Refracted Reality’ Patreon beta will be available from April 3rd until April 30th. Zone Manager Patreons (and above) will have exclusive access until April 20th, at which point the beta threshold will be lowered to the ‘Major Scientist’ tier.

Thank you for being a valued part of our community. We are eager to hear your thoughts on the upcoming features!

To subscribe to our Patreon and gain access to the beta, please visit: https://www.patreon.com/HubertMoszka

Please note that Patreon refreshes at the start of each month.

• We have fixed a softlock that occurred if the candle was picked up several times in the tutorial.
  
• We have fixed a bug in the action bar in cooperative mode.
  
• We have fixed a bug in the keybinding menu in cooperative mode.
  
• We have fixed a UI scaling bug that occurred when playing on a Steam Deck.
  
• We have modified the size of the UI in 4k resolution or higher.

In this release, I've added a new hyena character. This character can be unlocked by completing the game once. The hyena character has 5 skill slots for each skill, making it the strongest character in the game. The player can unlock this character after completing the game once.

Also, once the player completes the game with a character, the maximum skill slots of that character can be extended with 3 additional slots. Up to a maximum of 6 skill slots per skill. Each character can be upgraded twice before maxing out.

The game difficulty is also extended, giving each guard also a maximum of 6 skill slots for each of their skills. The assigned skills depend on both the player skills and player rank in the game.

The story cutscenes have been rewritten to include more details about the world. It is still a minimalist story, but hopefully this clears up the story for players who were confused by the original story or wanted to know more about the backstory of the character, the guild and the world they live in.

Finally, I fixed a visual bug where all guards would display a "blinded" icon whenever one guard was blinded. This bug only seemed to occur in the 3+ star difficulty missions.

In summary, the list of changes for v1.4.1 are:

1. A new unlockable hyena character with 5 skill slots for each skill after completing the game
   
2. Upgradable character, able to extend their maximum skill slots with 3 additional slots, up to 6 slots per skill after completing the game
   
3. Increased difficulty with higher guard skills for these extended character skills
   
4. Rewritten story cutscenes with more backstory details
   
5. Fixed a visual "blinded" icon glitch in the 3+ star difficulty missions

New Features :
Settings Menu :
You are now able to adjust the following settings :

• Fullscreen
  Please note, this will be enabled in a future update alongside a resolution option!
  
• Volume
  
• Graphics Setting

Changes :
- Updated the look of the main menu

• surveyor camera tracking now only kicks in at speed, so camera orientation is static when doing small manouvres
  
• surveyor camera tracking doesn't change pitch of camera
  
• default resolution changed to 1080p rather than the broken native detection

The 0.997 patch is mainly about correcting and tuning systems. It addresses some major issues around Gemini ascent. The patch also introduces a new system designed to help you navigate all the content of the game.

Note: If you are experiencing issues with this update, you can always revert to an earlier build using the Steam Betas Tab.


Career path node view
The "CAREER" view accessible from the Main Menu is designed to help new players navigate the content of the game and will try to guide you to learning a specific space craft. This is the first iteration of this and will continue to evolve going forward.

The first thing you need to do is to select the active space craft (this can be changed at any time). The career window will then show you how far you have progressed through the content specific for the selected space craft.


This screen will show you how far you have progressed on the various space crafts, your awards and various ranks tied to that craft (like your astronaut rank, mission controller rank, capcom rank and flight director rank).

Once you select a space craft (click on it), you will find a node based path where you can see how to receive awards and progress through learning a craft and playing it in the game.


Your current level and xp needed to reach the next level is visible on the Profile page. I have added the capcom and flight levels to this screen as well.


Note: You don't need to unlock the flight and capcom paths to join a mission control session as capcom of flight, but it will help you learn the needed knowledge to become a better capcom/flight.


Gemini Ascent fixes
One of the major issues is around Gemini ascent. This version seems to be correcting the ascent for many, but more testing and fixes are needed to make it stable.
If you are having issues with Gemini ascent, it would be great if you can reach out so I can get more data as I'm unfortunately unable to reproduce the issues on the test-computers I have available.

A dedicated thread on the Discord server has been set up for those who might still face these issues. Use this thread to report issues and discuss.
You can find the thread here: https://discord.com/channels/510845247404769331/1090688922767589457

Note: If you are not on Discord, feel free to use the Steam Community forum for this.



Gemini Campaign fixes
Multiple fixes are applied to the Gemini ascent, both mission sequences, instructions and fixes around completing issues.
If you complete a Gemini campaign mission using this build, and the campaign mission selector still don't show this, let me know and please supply the log-file so I can analyze.

If you are still facing issues related to this, you can use the following thread on Discord:
https://discord.com/channels/510845247404769331/1090688922767589457

Note: Again, if you are not on Discord, feel free to use the Steam Community forum for this.


Command Module entry guidance tuning
The recommended entry method is still to use manual control. However, I have made the 2nd iteration to make automatic entry guidance and RCS usage more stable. The guidance should now be much smoother and better on RCS usage.

Illustration: NASA

Mission Control Module entering alpha 2
With this update I will start the 2nd alpha round for the Mission Control multiplayer modules. A critical issue has been fixed that made MOCR crash after about 10 minutes of gameplay due to the major engine update that was rolled out a few patches ago.

Multiplayer modes are mainly are scheduled for version 1.2 -> 2.0 but will required significant testing, hence these early alpha testing rounds.

We will now get back into organizing official mission control sessions that you can join to learn all about being a Mission Controller and test if the new Mission Control nodes in the Career Path works.

Once the full development starts on Mission Control (1.2 -> ), the ranks you have earned will be visible on the joined player lists.



Thanks to the Test Pilots, Alpha Floor testers, and the community for helping me create this game!

Patch notes:

• Career path node view
  
• Fixed various MOCR crash to desktop issues
  
• Campaigns achievements unlocks
  
• Entry CM stability
  
• Entry RCS forces and logic
  
• Entry RCS jittering and oscillation tuning
  
• CM entry guidance iterations
  
• CM SCS rate switch rewiring to correct issue where it also affected the FDAI rate bands.
  
• Profile: Save player and capsule name issue corrected
  
• Gemini ascent
  
• Another iteration of km -> nmi in Gemini Campaign missions
  
• Gemini campaign 2 updates
  
• RCS -> OAMS fix in Gemini Burns lesson
  
• Campaign Save State fixes related to loading and completing missions when loading from state
  
• Changed initial retro time on Gemini campaign missions
  
• Increased the view range of the Lunar EVA astro and LRV cameras
  
• Fix for camera teleport issue during Lunar EVA if pressing F5->F11
  
• Fixes for the Gemini campaign completion issue

Hello - we're back again with a quick hotfix to squash some issues that have been interrupting some of your Big Ambitions!

In addition to some bug fixes, we have also re-opened up our Localizor app for community-based translations! If you would like to participate in translating the game, visit:

https://www.localizor.com/big-ambitions


Fixes in 1723:

• Fixed can't enter buildings with handtrucks or furniture blocking the entrance
  
• Possible fix to game crashing when auto-saving
  
• Fixed can't paint one piece of wall in A3 building size
  
• Fixed item customizer resetting colors under some scenarios
  
• Fixed purchasable traffic signs have no materials
  
• Fixed recruitment agency can choose skill on businesses without available skills
  
• Fixed EconoView CSV export feature missing quotes
  
• Fixed continue button on mini menu interactable with only recovery saves available
  
• Fixed forklift movement not stopping when exiting it
  
• Reenabled Localizor for community-driven translations (Options => Other)
  
• Some fixes to help menu entries

We continue on our way towards the bigger update, having received plentiful positive feedback and suggestions based on the Closed Alpha Test. And now we’d like to share more information about the occurred changes.



First, we decided to relocate the entirety of the starting location into the water and turn it into a sort of a continent. And it seems like sooner or later we’ll have to implement fully fleshed-out fishing into the game.. Floating islands will keep on spawning at different locations for each server, while the ability to fly will now be reserved for high-level players.



We’ve also received a lot of requests to make the Survival mode compatible with coop experience. So, we’ve adjusted the mode’s focus from Orders and PvP to survival and exploration. You’ll be able to protect your buildings with a special module - a sentinel. For those who either don’t want to participate in PvP, or want the mode to be more punishing, we’ll implement new server settings.



To make the survival experience more complete, we’ve added fatigue, which can be restored by consuming certain types of food or by sleeping in a bed. Beds can now also be used as checkpoints - you can return to them via teleportation stone or after respawning.
The stamina bar is now located in the top-left corner of the game to make the UI more coherent.



Another goal we have with the upcoming update is to improve combat by making it more fast-paced and diverse. Most weapons received updates to their attack animations, while some weapons received new ones altogether. Heavy attacks are no longer locked behind leveling and only require stamina to use, while battle energy will now directly impact combat abilities and allow you to use them more frequently.



We also want to add more fun activities so that the players can spend some quality time with their friends. Musical instruments, vendor stalls and even catapults! What will be included in the final version of the update depends solely on the Alpha Test results.



So, you can expect plenty of changes and improvements! We will soon announce the date of the Open Beta Test, where everyone will be able to give the new additions a try.

A challenging exploration and survival adventure, set in the dying world of Dragons. Only those who harness the power of Frozen Flame have the means to survive the harsh conditions of the realm and are able to muster the strength to cleanse it for good.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/715400/Frozen_Flame/



For more on Frozen Flame, follow the game on social media on the following channels.

Join other fans on Discord: https://discord.gg/playfrozenflame

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playfrozenflame/

Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/playfrozenflame/

Like our images and videos on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playfrozenflame

Share your review on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FrozenFlame/

This update brings a new turn system and adds whisper tabs to the chat, alongside the usual fixes and scripting improvements:

• The new turn system allows you to create phases to keep track of the state of your game and restrict interactions to players whose turn it is. Find out more about rounds, phases, and turns in the knowledge base: https://tabletop-playground.com/knowledge-base/turns-phases-and-rounds/

• The chat now supports whisper tabs: When you send a whisper message to another player or receive a whisper message, a new chat tab will open. You can have your private conversation in that chat. This keeps all messages with a player together and doesn't require you to use the `/w` command to whisper. The old behavior with both public and private messages in the main chat tab is still supported, you can disable tabs in the advanced interface options.
• Show template names in dialog for copying from other package



Scripting
• Add new `TurnSystem` class accessible through `GameWorld.turns` that enables access to the turn system
• Add `GameWorld.addCustomAction` and `GameWorld.removeCustomAction` to manipulate actions in the global context menu (right click menu when not clicking on an object)
• Add new parameter `identifier` to `GameObject.addCustomAction`, allowing to separate the visible name of the action from how it is identified in the code
• Add `DrawingLine.players` to allow restricting line visibility to certain players or teams
• Fix: node_modules folder was missing after last update

Fixes
• Installed packages from mod.io were not available when offline
• In rare cases the game could crash when removing an item from a container


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These new updates we've added are just some of the many features on our early access development roadmap for Tabletop Playground, which you can check out on our Trello HERE.

Don't forget to join our community Discord to chat with the dev team and give us your suggestions for new features for the game!