How a 30-day time-lapse of the Australian sky redefined a racing game

History · Published 6 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: To capture the true essence of the Australian wilderness, developers didn't just use digital tools. They sent teams to the Outback with high-resolution cameras to record months of real-world weather, creating a dynamic sky system that fundamentally altered the game's visual scale and atmosphere.

Developed by Playground Games and released in September 2016, Forza Horizon 3 shifted the series' perspective. Instead of merely being a participant in a car festival, players took on the role of the festival's director. The objective was to expand the event across a fictionalized Australia by completing stunts and races to build a fan base. To achieve this, the team designed a world roughly double the scale of its predecessor, featuring six distinct ecological regions.

The commitment to realism was extreme. Designers sent teams to Australia to photograph specific flora, rocks, and road textures. They even meticulously recreated landmarks like the Twelve Apostles and included hyper-local details like the specific colors of Australian garbage bins and phone boxes. While the geography was occasionally rearranged to prioritize smooth gameplay over strict accuracy, the goal was to celebrate Australian car culture, including local models like Utes and V8s that are less familiar to global audiences.

One of the most ambitious technical feats was the 'dynamic weather system.' Rather than relying solely on pre-rendered assets, teams spent months in Braidwood, New South Wales, capturing thousands of photos of clouds and weather patterns over 24-hour periods. This footage was imported to ensure that the game's day cycles were longer and more varied than previous titles. Additionally, the studio collaborated with Rare—the creators of Sea of Thieves—to share and refine the code for realistic sea interactions, ensuring the beaches felt lifelike.

The game also integrated sophisticated lighting tech, such as a voxel-based global illumination system to calculate how light bounces off different surfaces. This allowed for realistic shadows and blending across varying brightness levels. Despite these leaps, the game faced some scrutiny for its repetitive progression, even as it sold over 2.5 million copies in 2017 and won numerous awards for its visual fidelity.

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