Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels

It isn't as surprising and novel as it was the first time around, but Forza's high-speed brand of life-sized, toy-themed stunt racing is still a riotous good time.

Hot Wheels returns to Forza Horizon with more track types and an even larger map to speed through, but its strict progression is an unwelcome speed bump.

"The supersized Hot Wheels park that swoops and swirls above Mexico succeeded at putting a big smile on my face time and again"

If you are new to Forza Horizon's Hot Wheels expansions, you’ll likely have a blast with the latest one. It's once again a nice change of pace from the main game – with cars reaching all-new top speeds. For returning players, you can go into this paid DLC knowing what to expect, although it may not be quite as thrilling as the first time for some veterans. At the same time, you could say the Hot Wheels expansion for the Forza Horizon series has now been fully realised thanks to the power of Xbox Series X|S. It’s got us excited to see what’s next for the fifth entry in terms of future expansion content. So go on, get out there and burn some rubber.

The Hot Wheels expansion for Forza Horizon 5 is a solid addition that almost feels like it could be a stand-alone game. The team has done a great job of providing a fun sandbox and plenty of different cars to use while playing in that sandbox. It doesn't matter if you're a big kid at heart or an actual kid; if you love playing with toy cars, you're going to have fun driving them around in Hot Wheels Park and across the Mexican landscape.

Forza Horizon is such a strong brand name and has always offered so much quality and innovation in a very limited genre that people just can't expect anything less, and even though Hot Wheels is a solid DLC that can easily blow many full fledged arcade racing games out of the water, the fact that it's not "innovative" enough compared to previous entries in the series.

A decent expansion for an amazing game. It's not what we actually wanted, but it still offers a good amount of fun content.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels is especially aimed at those who have already logged many hours on the title and want additional content. Fans of the famous small car brand will be happy to find some of the iconic models and drive them. Nevertheless, the missions offered are quite repetitive, even if the progression system is well implemented. I would have preferred to have more varied missions while the environments of this new playground are. Not to mention that the vast majority of the cars can be picked up without even accessing the DLC and are not really customizable. Still, I had a lot of fun returning to the title for a few hours. I felt like I was back in childhood again with my little cars.

Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels is a thrilling ride that pushes the boundaries of physics and even allows you to build and share your own tracks. It's a great example of an expansion that mixes up the gameplay of the base game enough to make it worth owning as well.

The Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels expansion is really easy to recommend if you enjoy Forza Horizon 5. It adds a brand new, Hot Wheels-themed region and 10 new Hot Wheels cars that you can earn for your collection. You’ll get hours of playtime from Hot Wheels park, from ranking up to Legend status to developing your own tracks in the creator. It’s worth noting that this Hot Wheels expansion is also quite a bit more enjoyable than the recently released Hot Wheels Unleashed game, which makes me wonder… when Playground Games are done exploring the world of Fable, maybe they should be tasked with a full-on Hot Wheels game. At any rate, I would highly recommend the Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels expansion.