What ForzaTech is
ForzaTech is a proprietary game engine created by Turn 10 Studios, the Microsoft-owned developer behind the Forza Motorsport series. It has powered every Forza game, and Playground Games has used it for all five Forza Horizon titles. Fable is the first non-racing game ever built on ForzaTech.
The engine was designed from the ground up for open-world racing at high speeds. Adapting it for an action RPG where characters walk, fight, and talk presented a set of challenges that the original architects never anticipated.
Adapting a racing engine for RPG
The modification work was extensive. ForzaTech had to be retooled for fighting systems, complex character models, environmental storytelling, and NPC simulation. A racing engine handles cars on tracks and open roads. An RPG engine needs melee combat, dialogue systems, inventory management, quest logic, and thousands of individually behaving characters.
Reports during development indicated that fitting RPG gameplay into a racing engine caused real challenges. The engine excelled at rendering vast landscapes at speed but needed extensive reworking to handle the close-up detail and mechanical complexity of an RPG. Character models, facial animation, and combat physics all had to be built on top of a foundation designed for vehicles.
Scale comparison
Ralph Fulton offered a telling comparison between Forza Horizon and Fable's world design. Fable's world is smaller than Forza Horizon's open worlds, but it requires far more detail at ground level. His reasoning: "Horizon worlds are designed to be experienced at 250 miles per hour." When you are in a car going that fast, you do not notice whether a building has a furnished interior or whether an NPC has a daily routine. Fable characters move "at the speed of a horse at most."
An early test during development illustrated the difference. The team placed a Fable character model in Forza Horizon 3's Surfers Paradise (an Australian beachside town). Fulton said "it took an eternity to get anywhere." A world built for cars is far too large for a character on foot. Fable's world had to be smaller but denser.
Technical capabilities
ForzaTech brings several rendering capabilities that translate well from racing to RPG:
Feature | Description |
|---|---|
Ray tracing | Real-time ray tracing for lighting, reflections, and shadows. Forza Motorsport (2023) used ray tracing extensively, and the technology carries over. |
Dynamic lighting | Time-of-day and weather-driven lighting changes. Forza Horizon's day/night cycle and weather system were already sophisticated. |
Vegetation rendering | Lush plant life and foliage. Forza Horizon's countryside environments required detailed vegetation, and that tech feeds directly into Albion's forests and fields. |
Fluid animations | The engine's animation system was expanded for character combat, facial expressions, and NPC behavior. |
Complex character models | New to ForzaTech for Fable. Racing games had simple driver models. Fable needs over 1,000 distinct, fully articulated characters. |
Art pipeline and tools
The development team uses a combination of industry-standard tools alongside ForzaTech's internal toolchain:
Tool | Description |
|---|---|
Autodesk Maya | 3D modeling and animation |
Blender | Additional 3D modeling work |
ZBrush | High-detail character and creature sculpting |
Substance Painter | PBR (Physically Based Rendering) texture creation |
Mari | Texture painting for complex surfaces |
Why not switch engines
In early 2023, rumors circulated that Playground Games had abandoned ForzaTech in favor of Unreal Engine 5. Journalists at Windows Central and GamesIndustry.biz debunked these reports. The studio stayed with ForzaTech. The reasoning makes sense: Playground Games has nearly a decade of experience with the engine. Switching mid-development would have reset years of technical work.
ForzaTech also has advantages that a general-purpose engine like Unreal cannot match for this specific studio. It is optimized for the exact kind of open-world streaming and dynamic weather that Playground Games has been building for years. The challenge was adding RPG features on top, not replacing what already worked.
Relationship to Forza
Turn 10 Studios maintains the core engine, while Playground Games customizes it for their projects. For Fable, the customization was more radical than anything done for Forza Horizon. But the foundation, open-world streaming, weather systems, terrain rendering, lighting, remains the same technology that powers Playground Games' racing titles. Forza Horizon 6 runs on the same engine as Fable but in its racing configuration.