Forza Horizon 4 and the missed opportunity for Scottish Tourism
The Forza Horizon games are up there in my top five game series.
My top games
Its up there with Total War, Civilisation, Grand Theft Auto, and Gears of War.
Each is there for a specific reason, for instance, I love both the Total War and Civilisation games for there challenges and the rich histories of the world they present.
Gears of War, I love for its brilliant "world" that you play through and a superb bunch of stories that evolve with that world that mirrors our own, yet is so different as well.
I truly love Grand Theft Auto (especially 5) as its gameplay mix of hijinks, driving and shooting is a perfect blend to play a series of stories that tell an incredible material story about modern America as seen by outsides and layered with British humour and great storytelling.
The Forza Games
It also presents an open-world game that allows me to drive places, which brings me to Forza Horizon games.
They are wonderful, with fantastic graphics, brilliant cars, great destinations and a superb intro hour/hour and a half that really sells the games and brings real joy.
I also like it as someone who has failed his driving test a million times it allows me to experience the open, whilst racing against other sports cars.
The first Forza was set in the rocky mountains, the second along the CoteD'azure, the third in Australia and the fourth in Britain (the latest is set in Mexico)
The missed opportunity
Visit Scotland missed a real trick with the Forza Horizon series.
The game is arguably Xbox's biggest game (easily in the top 3). Indeed the Forza games are so highly regarded and commercially successful Microsoft purchased Playground games to keep them on Xbox.
Anyway, these games have a legion of loyal fans and people love the games.
Yet, almost zero was done to promote Scotland as a travel destination following on from these games.
No "visit the real Forza" adverts.
Nadda.
Nowt.
Nothing.
Which is a real shame.
This could have been used as a real opportunity to bring in new people to Scotland both from south of the border and further afield.
There are so many ways that they could have leveraged it.
Sadly, they didn't, which is a real shame.