New Forza Horizon 5 update brings 12 new American cars, lots more ways to spend your real money

Past the new cars and Festival Playlist update, FH5 is also getting new DLC and optional purchases.

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What you need to know

UPDATE Nov. 7, 2023:The Forza Horizon 5: American Automotive update is now available to download across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows PC. On Xbox Series X, at least, the content update measures ~13.51GB in size.

This update includes most of the new content and changes listed below, but the American Automotive Festival Playlist doesn’t begin until Nov. 9, the American Automotive Car Pack should be available to purchase in the near future, the new Forza holiday bundles are coming on Nov. 16, and the optional Autoshow Car Vouchers aren’t available yet. You can now see the full changelog for the update atForza.net.

In case you missed it,Forza Motorsport (2023) is also getting its first major updatewith new cars, the Yas Marina track, and lots of fixes.

My original article continues below.

•Everything new in American Automotive•New ways to spend your money•Celebrating the two-year anniversary•When does this all release?

Forza Horizon 5has two more updates planned to close out the year, and the second-to-last has been announced (and is basically already here). The American Automotive content update is releasing to FH5 players across Xbox and Windows PC on Nov. 7, 2023, with its accompanying Festival Playlist kicking off two days later on Nov. 9. As the name implies, this update is all about American-made vehicles.

I’ve already covered the2024 Lucid Air Sapphire coming to Forza Horizon 5, but there’s a lot more than that players can expect from the update. A new themed Festival Playlist, more races, improved accessibility, more customization options, and plenty of new cars are all here. Oh, and Playground Games is introducing more ways for you to spend your real money on the game, including new Forza Horizon 5 andForza Motorsport (2023)holiday bundles, another paid Car Pack DLC, and even optional Autoshow Car Vouchers to let players skip the Credits grind.

Let’s not waste any more time. Here’s everything you can expect from Forza Horizon 5: American Automotive.

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Everything new in the Forza Horizon 5: American Automotive update

The new ways to spend your real money on Forza

Forza Horizon 5 is a game-as-a-service, meaning it’s updated into perpetuity with new content and features, but it lacks in-game microtransactions. Up until this point, Playground Games has relied on hard game purchases and optional DLCs to monetize FH5, but that’s changing just a tad today with one addition.

Here are the three new ways you can spend your money on Forza.

Celebrating Forza Horizon 5’s 2nd anniversary

Nov. 9, 2023 marks the 2nd Anniversary for Forza Horizon 5 (although that date has already passed if you count the five-day early access period for Premium Edition owners). To mark the occasion, Playground Games released the above graphic detailing all the changes and updates FH5 has seen in its bustling two years of live, including the addition of 255 cars, two DLC expansions, substantially larger garages and tune/livery libraries, a vastly improved Photo Mode, and so much more.

Forza Horizon 5 has undoubtedly changed quite a bit across its two years of life, but Playground Games teases that there’s still a lot more to come for the open-world racing game. American Automotive and Winter Wonderland will close out 2023, but who knows what 2024 will bring?

When does Forza Horizon 5: American Automotive release?

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When can players expect the latest batch of content for thebest Xbox racing game? Well, lets take this one item at a time. The free Forza Horizon 5: American Automotive content update will release onNov. 7, 2023forXbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, andXbox and PC Game Pass. At this point, players will be able to enjoy the latest quality-of-life improvements, accessibility features, bug fixes, and new content such as more vehicle customization options and four new race routes.

The American Automotive Festival Playlist will not kick off for two more days, on Nov. 9, 2023. At this point, players will be able to participate in a refreshed Festival Playlist for free, highlighting American-made vehicles, the new race routes and returning Oval Track, and more creations from EventLab 2.0. The eight new reward vehicles will also be offered through the four-week Festival Playlist.

The Forza Horizon 5: American Automotive Car Pack featuring four more American-made vehicles will release on Nov. 7, 2023 for Xbox and Windows PC. This is an optional Car Pack that will cost $4.99, and immediately add all four cars to your collection.

Playground Games doesn’t actually state exactly when Autoshow Car Vouchers will be released, leading me to believe the optional microtransactions will arrive either on Nov. 7 alongside the American Automotive update or at some point in the future. Either way, the Autoshow Car Vouchers will work across Xbox and Windows PC. Autoshow Car Voucher bundles will range from $4.99 to $19.99 in price.

Finally, the new Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Motorsport bundles will be available across Xbox and Windows PC from Nov. 16, 2023 until Nov. 30, 2023. It’s not clear if the bundles will disappear from storefronts permanently at the end of the month, but it seems that’s likely the case. Pricing for these bundles have not been released yet.

Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer for Windows Central, primarily focused on covering the latest news in tech and gaming, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting Windows and Xbox hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life starting with the original Xbox, and started out as a freelancer for Windows Central and its sister sites in 2019. Now a full-fledged Staff Writer, Zachary has expanded from only writing about all things Minecraft to covering practically everything on which Windows Central is an expert, especially when it comes to Microsoft. You can find Zachary on Twitter@BoddyZachary.