Legendary Car Brands Are Finally Coming Back to Video Games

Forza Horizon 5 community developer Giuseppe Dalicante made the surprise announcement that Abarth, Alfa Romeo, FIAT, and Lancia will be returning to Horizon in the Italian car series starting August 17, following the conclusion of the Series 23 “Summer Party” preview.

These four brands are among the 16 brands under the Stellantis banner, formed by the January 2021 merger: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Peugeot’s PSA Group. While Stellantis is unique among large, multi-marque companies in having combined all of its brands’ press offices and public relations into a single entity, it’s never been entirely clear what the problem is.

Here, at least for racing fans, the problems began. No matter what your favorite racing title is, it probably hasn’t escaped your attention that new games — including FH5 — have either launched without a lot of cars from these brands or haven’t added any since launch.

As car licensing is a PR-driven activity, it seems likely that this consolidation has led to the situation where no new licenses have been available, with GT7’s Giulia hitting the merger buzzer. Only games with very long license agreements keep the French and Italian brands. Forza’s licenses are so short that there is no Forza Motorsport game on sale today due to expiring licenses.

Exactly what cars the marques will bring back to Forza Horizon 5 is yet to come, but we’ll probably find out in the next Forza Monthly stream in early August.

Source: GTPlanet