Melding reality with the virtual world: developers of the racing video game Forza Motorsport 7 worked closely with the engineers in Weissach to create an experience that’s incredibly lifelike. The star of the game: the most powerful 911 of all time.
The biting, ferocious sound of the Porsche 911 GT2 RS practically knocks the player off the sofa. It’s a sound that says: we’re not just driving and overtaking rivals here—machines are being pushed to their very limits. The game developers responsible for creating this sound and the other impressive aspects of Forza Motorsport 7 were at the Porsche Development Center in Weissach for days. They listened with keen attention to how the powerful flat-six engine readies itself to spring into action. How it pounces. And refuses to let go. The result of the collaboration between Microsoft and the sports-car manufacturer: the exhilarating thrill of driving a Porsche can now be experienced, in exacting detail, in living rooms across the world.
As with the sound, the programmers brought a painstaking eye for detail to every aspect of the experience. Graphics: almost photorealistic. Driving characteristics: crafted to precisely replicate each model, thanks to extensive technical data from Porsche development. Racetrack, light, weather conditions: it’s as if the player were on location in Dubai, or fending off rain on the Nürburgring.
Never before have so many cars and so many circuits been packed into a Forza game. And never before has a Porsche 911 generated such brutish force as the 700-hp GT2 RS. For the first time, a top-of-the-line 911 was shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles together with its digital twin—albeit only for a few minutes.
Forza Motorsport 7 offers seven hundred vehicles, including twenty-nine Porsche models, for riveting contests on the track. For example: a duel of the super sports cars, the 918 Spyder and Carrera GT; a historic hill-climb race between a 550 A Spyder and a 356 A Speedster; or, for the truly dedicated gamer, a twenty-four-hour race in the three-time LMP1 champion—the 919 Hybrid.
By Bernd Eberhart
Forza Motorsport 7
Manufacturer: Microsoft
Developer: Turn 10 Studios
Platforms: Xbox One, Windows 10
Available: from October 3
