Developer Accidentally Makes Forza Horizon 4 Available for Download 4 Months Early

The Forza racing games have always obsessively focused on accurate car models and performance characteristics. Naturally, fans of the Forza franchise have waited with bated breath for the list of licensed cars in each incarnation. Forza Horizon 4 isn’t set to come out for four more months, but the developers accidentally pushed it out to some fans over the weekend. Of course, downloaders have harvested a partial list of cars from the game files.

This leak might have gone unnoticed, except that it was only the biggest Forza fans in the world who got the early download: those who pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of Forza Horizon 4 from the Windows Store. You really have to love a game to bother with the Windows Store. The game files started preloading for these people without warning over the weekend. This is a common feature of big games so you can start playing as soon as the official release date hits. Still, no developer is going to preload game files four months early.

The level of detail that goes into Forza means that Forza Horizon 4 is going to be massive. The Windows Store reports a total download size of 90GB, but the download was stopped before the full game rolled out. According to the developers, someone accidentally pushed a test build of the game to the public distribution channel, triggering the preload on computers.

From the names of files in the download, gamers have pieced together a partial list of vehicles in Forza Horizon 4, but even the partial list still includes hundreds of vehicles. There’s the Acura NSX, Lotus Esprit, Ferrari Enzo, and many more. Essentially every car you’ve ever heard of is in this game. The Windows Store encrypts files it downloads, so there might not be much more to learn about the game at this stage.

The developers say gamers who got the preloaded game don’t need to do anything. The final version will download normally when the time comes. However, they might want to uninstall the improperly distributed version, as 50GB is a lot of space to waste on a game you can’t even play for another four months.

Forza Horizon 4 will launch on Windows and Xbox One on October 2. The base version costs $60 and the Ultimate Edition (which triggered the preload) is $100. That one includes more unlocked cars and expansion passes.

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