Forza Horizon 4 racing across Britain in October

The next race 'em up in Playground Games' fine Forza Horizon series will zoom around a land near and dear to our own hearts. Microsoft today announced Forza Horizon 4, racing across "historic" Blighty in an open shared world. Their gameplay demo on stage included a street in Edinburgh I walked along less than an hour ago, which was surreal but quite pleasant to see. Too few games are set in our green land. Here, watch the announcement trailer and see where you recognise.

The game will have dynamic seasons too, rotating at the same time for all players, which obviously affect racing conditions. See the game's page for more.

I always enjoy seeing familiar places ha-ha-hilariously idealised in video games. Sure, a realistic Princes Street wouldn't be fun to race along, but I barely recognise this place without roadworks, huge crowds of people filling the corners by traffic lights, and tourists taking up the whole pavement dragging luggage. What a dream! And if it doesn't fill up with street performers, walking silent discos, and leafletters during summer...

Forza Horizon 4 is coming on October 2nd, as a Windows 10 exclusive - as all Microsoft's own games are. It'll also be playable through the Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft's subscription service, from launch day.

Check out our E3 2018 tag for more announcements, trailers, news, and goodness knows what else.