Forza Horizon 4 Is Adding a Battle Royale Mode

Microsoft and Xbox Game Studios made a surprise announcement about Forza Horizon 4 on Wednesday to reveal that a battle royale mode is coming to the game soon. It’s the type of feature that people jokingly speculated would come to every type of game back when battle royale was at its peak, but it looks like the developers have been quietly working away at that exact type of mode. It’s scheduled to be released as part of a free update on December 12th for both the Xbox One and the PC versions.

The trailer above proves that the Forza Horizon 4 battle royale mode is indeed real, and it’s called “The Eliminator.” It consists of 72 players driving a range of vehicles as they compete against other players in rural and urban settings. Just like there is with any battle royale game, The Eliminator will have a ring around the battle area to keep players confined to a playing field.

This game mode doesn’t involve players scouring the battlefield for weapons and other resources though. Instead, players will challenge each other to races with the losers eliminated and the winners getting their cars upgraded. You can find “car drops” around the world though to get yourself set up with a better vehicle early on so that you’ll have an advantage over others. Eventually, there will only be one player left standing, and they’ll be the winner of The Eliminator.

“The Eliminator invites up to 72 players to face-off within an arena set in the open world of Britain,” Microsoft said about the new game mode. “Eliminating one another in head-to-head races to earn upgrades and a chance to pick up faster cars. Arena walls contract throughout the game, forcing players closer together until a final white-knuckle race among the survivors determines the winner.”

Mike Brown, the principal game designer for Forza Horizon 4, spoke about the Series 17 Update during the recent Forza stream and discussed how The Eliminator came to be. Brown said The Eliminator was born from a mode played in the developers’ offices long ago before Forza Horizon 4 even released where the developers themselves would race against one another and give their cars upgrades after winning only to race again against others, sometimes with cars being swapped around. It was then that the studio realized there was something to this sort of idea.

Forza Horizon 4 will add The Eliminator as part of a free update on December 12th.