Microsoft has released a secret new Forza game but rather than being a racing sim it’s a free-to-play puzzler with microtransactions.
Although Microsoft execs spent an awful lot of time going on about Call Of Duty on Nintendo Switch, the real reason for buying Activision Blizzard was supposed to be mobile gaming and the acquisition of Candy Crush publisher King – the third part of the triumvirate of companies that cost Microsoft $69 billion.
Despite this supposed importance to their plans, they’ve never really talked in detail about how they’re going to approach the mobile market, now that they own such a major player, but we don’t think anyone expected a match-3 puzzler based on the Forza franchise.
Forza Customs – Restore Cars is available now on iOS and Android and does not feature racing of any kind. Instead, it’s just a typical match-three puzzler, not entirely dissimilar to Candy Crush Saga, where you’re trying to earn points to create and install parts for your virtual cars.
There’s been absolutely no fanfare to announce the game, which isn’t even mentioned on the Xbox website, but it’s free-to-play so you can just give it a go yourself and see what you think.
The developer is British studio Hutch, who seem to specialise in car-related mobile games, but it doesn’t connect to any of the Forza titles in any way, in terms of adding parts to the game or being able to race your cars or anything.
Although it is free-to-play there are, of course, microtransactions, with in-game currency available to buy in bundles that cost up to £89.99.
Given it’s come out so soon after the acquisition was finalised, this probably has nothing to do with Activision Blizzard but is merely a leftover from Microsoft’s earlier mobile plans.
It’s still a very odd concept though, given they could have used any existing Xbox franchise to make a puzzle game out of and the one they chose was Forza.
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