Forza Horizon studio is working on a non-racing, open world game

Forza Horizon 3 studio Playground Games is opening a new branch to work on a non-racing game. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, studio founder Ralph Fulton revealed that the new studio will open in Leamington Spa in England, and will offer the company an opportunity "to test ourselves in a different genre".

Founded in 2010, Playground Games has been responsible for each of the three games in the Forza Horizon series, meaning it has an established reputation as a market leader in racing games. That may change though, as Fulton says they want to try their hands at something new.

"We feel like we've become pretty good at racing games over the years," he said. "We can always get better, we can always strive to get better but we'd love to prove ourselves in a different genre. That's another goal of Project 2, to allow us to do that. We're going to need to hire some very talented people with experience that we don't have."

While Fulton confirmed to GamesIndustry that "Project 2" will be an open world game, there's no other information regarding what specifically it might be. Don't worry though, because the studio has no plans to stop working on the Forza Horizon series, so it's likely we'll see another game in the series next year.

Shaun Prescott

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.