The latest Forza Horizon 5 patch update introduced some new issues

Two steps forward, one step backward.

What you need to know

• Forza Horizon 5 is an ambitious open-world racing game that has already amassed millions of happy players.
• However, the game has received a fair amount of criticism for a variety of bugs and issues, especially with its online mode.
• A recent patch update aimed to resolve many of these problems, but seems to have introduced a few new ones as well.
• Players are encountering infinite save screens, prolonged load times, crashes when entering races, unresponsive controllers, and more.

In most ways, Forza Horizon 5 is an irrefutable success story. However, many players that have experienced Playground Games' latest masterpiece have also encountered a myriad of bugs and issues, many of which detract from FH5's online modes and deter progression. Playground Games has been transparent and communicative about working on these issues, and recently released the Dec. 3, 2021 patch update for Forza Horizon 5 to fix many of these problems.

Unfortunately, the patch update is a classic tale of "two steps forward, one step backward," with new faults being introduced into the game alongside the plethora of fixes. Players are now complaining of egregious issues that are making playing Forza Horizon 5 a frustrating endeavor. Some of the issues we've seen reported across Twitter, Reddit, and experienced ourselves include:

• Infinite saving bug. Players are encountering a particularly annoying issue in which anything that requires a dedicated saving screen, like upgrading a car, sharing or applying a tune, sharing or applying a paint job or decals, and anything else can result in an infinite save screen.
  • This bug mostly seems to be affecting players on Xbox Series X|S, but may be affecting other platforms as well
  • The only way to fix this bug is to hard reset Forza Horizon 5 and load in again. In some cases, like when upgrading your car, your progress should still be saved. In other cases, it's simply not possible to complete the task in question.
• Game crashes when entering races. Crashes are never good to see in a game, and Forza Horizon 5's latest update has seemingly introduced a pretty prevalent one. Players are noticing game crashes whenever they attempt to enter a Race Event, especially ones attached to one of the Seasonal Championships as part of the Festival Playlist.
  • We haven't encountered a workaround for these crashes, yet. Choosing a different car (possibly one without upgrades applied) may help
• Long loading screens. Players are also noticing extended load screens, especially when entering or leaving a Race Event, but can affect any loading screen in Forza Horizon 5. In most cases simply waiting is enough to resolve this issue, but it's still an annoyance when FH5 typically is quite fast at loading.
• Unresponsive controllers. Forza Horizon 5 players that use a controller have reported frequent disconnects where their controller inputs are no longer registered, especially when leaving Festival Sites or Player Houses, or after fast travelling.
  • Restarting the game appears to resolve this issue temporarily
• Other crashes and freezes. Players are also encountering brand-new crashes at the main menu, and even a black screen bug that (reportedly) requires that the game be reinstalled completely.
• Accolades not actually fixed. Many of the fixes in the recent patch update was for several Accolades not actually completing. Most notably, for taking pictures of the statues in the El Camino Horizon Story. Despite the patch update claiming to have fixed this specific Accolade, it still doesn't complete properly for many players.
• Online connectivity and population issues. The Forza Horizon 5 Dec. 3, 2021 patch update focused primarily on fixing online issues, especially with Horizon Arcade. While it is now considerably easier to complete Horizon Arcade events, even by yourself, other elements of FH5's online portions haven't improved. Players are reporting that Horizon Life is now rarely populated by more than one or two additional players, and Convoys are still plagued with the same problems.

Playground Games has been transparent about its efforts to improve Forza Horizon 5, even as we enter the end-of-year holidays. It's important to remain patient as Playground works on resolving the lingering problems in Forza Horizon 5. Still, many community members are expressing their frustration with the recent patch update introducing brand-new problems on top of its fixes, some of which make it nearly impossible to play the game as intended.

Hopefully, a new update will arrive shortly to fix these newfound issues. In the meantime, we'll continue to look for updates, potential workarounds, and more.

In our Forza Horizon 5 review, we concluded that Playground Games has delivered the unchallenged champion of open-world racers, and is the quintessential choice on our list of best Xbox racing games. This remains true, even with the persistent online flaws that afflict the title in the weeks after launch. If you want to learn more about this excellent game and everything it has to offer, be sure to check out our ultimate guide to Forza Horizon 5.

The unchallenged champion

Forza Horizon 5

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The best open-world racer

Playground Games has delivered their latest masterpiece with Forza Horizon 5, which features the series' most diverse map and largest car list yet. Forza Horizon 5 somehow fulfills its ambitious promises to be the best open-world racer right now, and one of the best racing games in general.

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