Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt has moved to clarify that Forza Motorsport 5 on Xbox One will be playable prior to downloading a previously-confirmed free day-one update.

According to previous reports, which cited Greenawalt himself, Forza 5 owners would have been strictly required to download a significant data pack before being able to play the game at all.

But in a revised statement, Greenawalt has told IGN that this is "not the plan", clarifying that the game will be at least partially playable before the free content is downloaded, and that while its eventual installation is required to complete the game, the whole process can be done in the background as you play.

"This download is simply additional cars and tracks. The gameplay is not blocked while downloading the additional content; it's done in the background just like disc install," said Greenawalt.

Greenawalt goes on to assert that if a player never connects to Xbox Live they "won't be blocked from playing the game", but also won't be able to complete it.

"Deeper areas in the career mode were designed to utilize these additional cars and tracks," confirms Greenawalt.

A background download process will also be used to download player-created 'Drivatar' AI opponents.

"In the beginning of the game, the player will be racing against Drivatars that are contained on the disc and were trained by the [Turn 10 development] team," he explained. "While playing, the player will be asked to connect to Live in order to download a completely fresh set of player-created Drivatar opponents - it's not a lot of data, but the download contains enough Drivatars to cover all difficulty settings."

Forza 5 will be an Xbox One launch title when the console arrives in November.

Posted: Jul 22, 2013 8:43 am
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/420007/forza-5-day-one-download-not-required-to-start-playing/