Forza Horizon players worried as controversial microtransactions added in update

Aakash Regmi
The new Car Voucher of Forza Horizon 5

While the Forza series has always had other forms of premium purchases, there haven’t been any major microtransactions. Now, Forza Horizon 5 is getting microtransactions in the form of Car Vouchers, and that has players worried about the future of the franchise. 

For the most part, the Forza series never had any major microtransactions. There was only stuff like car passes, DLCs, or alternative premium currencies like tokens, that could be bought with real-world money.

The latest games in both the Horizon and Motorsport series do not have any direct microtransactions and only exist in the form of DLCs and premium purchases. But that’s changing for the Horizon series, and now players are worried, thinking that this means future games will get grindy.

The new microtransactions called “Autoshow Car Voucher” were first announced by the Forza Horizon dev team in the Forza forum. Ever since multiple content creators and players have voiced their concerns over the inclusion of the voucher.

The car voucher is available in bundles of 4, 10, and 24 vouchers, which will be priced at $4.99/£3.99, $9.99/£7.99, and $19.99/£14.99 respectively. It is purely optional and does not affect any part of the game. Especially when you consider that one of the long-standing complaints of players was that getting a car in Forza Horizon 5 is easy and the game “hands out” cars too frequently.

This was something players first pointed out, as a user wrote, “Why would you need this? It’s easy to get a million credits in this game…” However, many were skeptical and felt the voucher may hurt the future of the franchise.

On X, a user said, “Alright I think I’m done with FH5 for a while.” Others more or less said they’re not happy with it at all: “Major red flag for the future… If this turns out successful, expect a predatory system implemented in FH6. OOF…”

The same X thread was also shared on Reddit where players said that they were concerned about the future. A user wrote, “Why do I feel like it will be harder to earn money in next horizon game…”

Others either pointed out these are “useless” considering the current economy of the game or said they’re fine now but nothing can be said about the future: “For people thinking this is fine because you can get millions easily, ok, they can easily change how much money you can make in the next game. And it’s what is going to happen very likely if this Car Voucher goes through.”

Playground Games haven’t made any comments about vouchers following the announcement. For more on the Forza series, check out the best PC settings for Forza Motorsport as well as some handy tips for the game.