Forza Motorsport, the eighth entry in the Forza Motorsport series, is revving its engines in preparation for an October release. One of the exciting new features of the game is the implementation of a brand-new single player experience.

The new mode, dubbed “The Builders Cup”, was showcased in June's Forza Monthly show. In the show, Creative Director Chris Esaki spoke about all the new features and upgrades coming to the newest title. Esaki said that the three parts that make up the Forza Motorsport loop is “level, build, dominate”.

Let's take a look at the Builders Cup and how those three ideas incorporate themselves into the experience.

Forza Motorsport – What Is The Builders Cup?

The Builders Cup is a single-player career mode where you build, tune, and improve your driving skills. When entering the mode, you'll see all sorts of Tours and challenges that you can participate in. Some of the tours include the Modern Tour, the Enthusiast Tour, or the Legacy Tour. Completing a tour will earn you rewards, as well as the next level within that tour. Each tour looks to have 5 races each.

Over the course of the game's lifespan, more cars and tracks will be released into the mode for players to try out. It sounds similar to Grid Legends' story mode, but with real cars instead of fictional teams and characters. According to Esaki, the Builders Cup will “shift, change, and evolve” with all the new content that will come to the game.

Each Tour consists of series where you will upgrade your car and compete with it, helping the player find the car they love. They all start with an intro that highlights the car's story and history. The example they showed in the video was the Built For Sport Tour, where the first race has them participate in the Kyalami – Grand Prix Circuit.

Setup

When the cutscene finished, the player is taken to a screen where they can decide on a few things before going out on the track. The first thing you'll notice is the AI skill. The higher you set the AI's skill, the more credits you'll receive. Therefore, it'll be more challenging.

Up next is a Rule Set Bonus with three options: Club, Sport and Expert. This dictates how realistic your racing experience is based on car damage, penalties, and rewinds. Below is how they work, plus the percentage of extra credits they give.

  • Club (Credits +4.0%)
    • Cosmetic Damage Only
    • Rewind ON
    • Lenient Penalties
  • Sport (Credits +7.5%)
    • Simulated Fuel and Tires
    • Rewind ON
    • Moderate Penalties
  • Expert (Credits +12.0%)
    • Simulated Damage, Fuel & Tires
    • Rewind OFF
    • Strict Penalties

Before the race begins, you can tune your vehicle, install parts for better performance, or load/share your own race setup. So despite being an offline mode, there's still ways to interact with others. Every event in the Builders Cup includes an open practice session so you can test your car's limits with no pressure.

Gameplay

Like many racing games, there's objectives and bonus goals that the player can complete. For example, The Kyalami – Grand Prix Circuit's objective is to complete 3 laps (required), but there's a bonus objective to complete a lap in a certain amount of time.

To change things up, Turn 10 studios has introduced a Car Mastery System. Each corner is a moment-to-moment objective where you can see and compare how fast you were, if it was your best segment, and an overall segment score. This whole new system gives your Car XP as you race. Esaki likes to think of it as a “CaRPG”.

All the new gameplay elements, like dynamic weather will also be incorporated into the Builders Cup.

Another new big feature, Challenge The Grid, is an option to select where you're first put on the Starting Grid. Wager your starting position against your ability to finish on the Podium. While starting at 24th position will net you a lot of credits if you somehow make it to 1st to 3rd, starting higher up will net you less credits.

The race then proceeds as normally, and when it ends you can check out the full results. If you managed to reach first place, you'll get to see a little cutscene of your driver celebrating. After the race, you're given the chance to build up your car and keep playing with it.

“Cars in Forza Motorsport are built, not bought,” Esaki says. After each race you install the parts you've earned via car points. However, you can regain car points if you spent it on something you didn't want by uninstalling the part.

Forza Motorsport Forza Monthly Video

Below is the stream for those that are interested in hearing more from the developers. Most of the stream itself is an interview with Chris Esaki on the new additions and the development cycle of Forza Motorsport.

Forza Motorsport releases on October 10th, 2023. Forza Motorsport will release on Tuesday, October 10th, 2023. It will be available exclusively on Xbox Series X and Steam. Game Pass members can play the game as well. For those who pre-order the Ultimate Edition, you'll able to play 5 days before the official release date.

For more information on Forza Motorsport, check out Clutchpoints Gaming.