Cars level up after every corner in Forza Motorsport’s career mode, and it’s always online

Level, build, dominate. These are the pillars of the Forza Motorsport reboot, a game that wants you to build a relationship with every car, and not simply buy it and forget about it after one race.

That’s only scratching the surface of Turn 10’s goals with the new game, which the developer showed off fairly well in an extended look at the career mode.

The Builders Cup is where it all begins, which is the new career mode. The Builders Cup is made up of different playlists, as you’d expect from a Forza game. Each one has a specific theme, or focuses on one particular era, body type, design etc. Turn 10 said playlists will be updated with new tracks, and new cars.

Unfortunately, that also means that career mode is always online, and you won’t be able to make any progress offline. While some modes will be available offline, Builders Cup (the main mode) will require a constant internet connection.

This fact was confirmed by creative director Chris Esaki during the latest Forza Monthly livestream. While new for Forza, requiring a persistint internet connection for career mode is something other racing sims have had, such as Gran Turismo 7.

Where it gets a little interesting/wild is car progression. Car Mastery is effectively a car levelling system where your car earns XP at every corner of the track. The idea is that you’re building your familiarity with the car, and growing a bond.

When it comes to building cars, each car has an allocation of points, which you can use to upgrade its performance in any way you want, and push it towards certain styles. The higher your car level is, the more points you’re going to have, and the more upgrades that will be available to you.

Forza Motorsport is out October 10 on PC, and Xbox Series X/S.