14 DAY TRIAL // Forza Horizon 2 on the Xbox One will use the Drivatar system first seen in Forza Motorsport 5, and developer Playground Games has confirmed that it's going to use the existing data from last year's Xbox One game and bring in new data about the exploration of the game's open world.
Forza Horizon 2 continues the spinoff series established in the Forza racing series back in 2012 on the Xbox 360, bringing forth a wide open world, this time set in Southern Europe, that will host all sorts of different events and races, while allowing players to just drive around its environment.
Just like in Forza Motorsport 5, however, other racers in the game's world will actually be controlled by the Drivatars of other Forza Horizon 2 players, and will even have the behavior from last year's title, according to developer Playground Games, which talked with IGN.
"It’s the same system [from Forza Motorsport 5]; all you have to do in Forza Horizon 2 is train your Drivatar to drive in the open-world. It already knows exactly how you take corners, where you brake, how you pass other cars from Forza Motorsport 5, and you can continue to train it to do those things in Forza Horizon 2," the studio said.
However, besides knowing the basic in-race behavior, the Drivatar system will also take into consideration the exploration abilities of the player, as well as the places he or she have managed to find in the game's open world.
What's more, this system can also help players find new collectibles or cars hidden in the game's world, as the Drivatars will go to such places if their owners did in their own gameplay sessions.
"What it learns only in Forza Horizon 2, though, is when you leave the road, where you explore, the kind of places that you go. That’s an exciting new element to the Drivatar story," the studio added.
"A super cool nuance of this, which is one of the organic things that just comes out of systems that are as complex as Drivatars, is that if your friend has found a secret collectible, or maybe even a Barn Find that you haven’t, sometimes you can just follow where he’s going. And because his Drivatar is driving where he has been, he can lead you to a collectible or a secret that you haven’t even found."
Forza Horizon 2 is set to debut this fall for the Xbox One and Xbox 360, and you can expect to hear more today, June 9, during Microsoft's E3 2014 press conference.