Forza Horizon 2 is a racing video game, featuring an open world environment.[2] The player participates in the Horizon Festival, a fictional racing competition set within Southern France and Northern Italy.[3] The game has approximately three times more drivable area than that of its predecessor Forza Horizon, with events set in Provence, Liguria and Côte d'Azur (Nice) along with scaled down towns of Sisteron and Saint-Martin-du-Var. There is a small part of the map that includes parts of the Amalfi Coast and a fictional town called Castelletto which consists of features from the town of Amalfi. There is also some small features in the map like the golf course, the docks (which are only accessible in the Xbox One version of the game) and aerodrome. Players can explore the expansive map, taking part in races and special events in order to advance through the game. Events can take place at day or night, and a dynamic weather system was added for the first time in a Forza-series game.[4]
Among new features in the game are "Bucket Lists", three groups of timed challenges for the player to complete, similar to the 1000 Club in Forza Horizon. They can be completed in solo or co-op mode (when a player goes to the online version of the map, they can be completed with a random person or invited friend). These challenges are continuously updated to provide new challenges throughout the map. Car Meets are an online mode where players can meet up online and compare their cars, similar to "Forzavista" mode in Forza Motorsport 5. Players are also able to interact with each other in Car Meets, including sharing tuning setups and liveries. In the online version of the game, races such as circuits, sprints, and cross country are playable against other players, along with other game types such as Infected and King.[5]
The standalone expansion of the game based on The Fast and the Furious franchise, Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious, added nitrous oxide boosts to the Forza series. Unlike other racing games however, nitrous can only be used during most of the game's events, and only replenishes at the very start of said events. On the Xbox 360, it's only used in drag races.
