Forza Horizon 4: Complete Guide

This guide covers Forza Horizon 4 on PC as it stands after its delisting: what still works, how progression, seasons, and money work, how to tune and pick cars, and when to move on to Forza Horizon 5 or 6.

Researched September 2026. Current as of the post-delisting state (delisted December 15, 2024; final Festival Playlist was Series 77 in summer 2024). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Status notice: Forza Horizon 4 was delisted from digital stores (Steam and Microsoft Store) on December 15, 2024; its DLC had already been pulled from sale on June 25, 2024. Playground cited licensing agreements with its partners. You can't buy it anymore, but anyone who already owns it can still download and play it. The weekly Festival Playlist stopped after Series 77 (late July to late August 2024), so Playlist-only rewards and achievements tied to it ("Encore?", "Cashing in", "Perfectionist") can no longer be earned the normal way. The series has since moved on to Forza Horizon 5 (Mexico) and Forza Horizon 6 (Japan, released May 19, 2026 on Xbox Series X|S and PC).

Quick Start

Everything you do earns Influence. Racing, stunts, crashes into scenery, photos, and skill chains all feed Influence, which unlocks new championships and festival sites. You don't have to follow one path.
Seasons matter. The shared world rotates Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. Winter freezes lakes (new shortcuts) and changes grip a lot, so tune and pick tyres for the season.
Spin your Wheelspins right away. Wheelspins and Super Wheelspins give cars, credits, clothing, and horns. Early spins are a big chunk of your starting garage and cash.
Turn difficulty up once you're comfortable. Harder Drivatars and fewer assists raise your credit payout percentage. Getting used to manual gearing and no braking assist pays off over time.
Hunt Barn Finds. Rumours about barn finds unlock as you progress. Each one is a classic car you get for free, restored and delivered to your garage.
Smash the boards. Orange XP boards give Influence, and Fast Travel boards cut the cost of fast travel. Smashing all of them makes fast travel free.
Use Car Mastery trees. Each car has its own perk tree, paid for with Skill Points from skill chains. Some trees unlock Wheelspins, Super Wheelspins, or free credits. Check the tree before you sell a car.
Don't overspend on the Autoshow early. Wheelspins, Barn Finds, and story rewards give you plenty of cars. Buy with a specific class and event in mind.
Tune by class. Events are limited by Performance Index (PI) class. One well-built car per class and discipline beats a garage full of random hypercars.

What Still Works After Delisting

Feature	Status (as of September 2026)
Owning and re-downloading the game	Still works for existing owners on the platform where they bought it
Solo campaign, Horizon Stories, showcases	Fully playable
Owned DLC (Fortune Island, LEGO Speed Champions, car packs)	Playable if you bought it before it left sale (June 25, 2024); no longer sold
Festival Playlist (weekly Seasonal Championships and Series rewards)	Ended after Series 77 (summer 2024)
Playlist-only car unlocks and Playlist achievements	Can't be earned the normal way anymore
Online features (shared world, auction house, online events)	The official feed didn't announce a server shutdown as of this writing. Player counts are much lower than at peak, so matchmaking can be slow

If you're choosing where to spend your time, FH4 is still a great single-player and cruise game. For a busy online scene and ongoing content, Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Horizon 6 are where the players are.

Core Systems

Influence, Horizon Life, and Progression

Forza Horizon 4 splits the campaign into disciplines, each with its own progression:

Discipline	What it is
Road Racing	Circuit and sprint races on tarmac
Dirt Racing	Mixed-surface rally-style events
Cross Country	Off-road point-to-point through fields, walls, and rivers
Street Scene	Unsanctioned street races on public roads
Drag	Straight-line drag events
Horizon Stories	Story-driven mini-campaigns such as Stunt Driver and Drift Club

Early on you work through the Season Change prologue, which puts you in each season once. After that the world joins the live season rotation. Completing events and earning Influence moves you up in each discipline, which unlocks more championships, Showcase Events, and eventually the full Horizon Superstar status.

Showcase Events

Showcases are one-off spectacle races against something that isn't a car. They include The Halo Showdown (a Warthog race) and the train race (The Flying Scotsman). The Goliath is the long endurance road race. Showcases are one-time Influence spikes and good for achievements.

Seasons

Seasons change on a weekly schedule, and everyone in the shared world has the same one.

Summer: dry, high grip, the default for tuning.
Autumn: wet roads and puddles. Use slightly softer setups and be careful of standing water.
Winter: snow and ice, and frozen lakes open new routes. AWD cars and snow or rally tyres are a big advantage.
Spring: mud and rain are common, so off-road setups work well.

With the Festival Playlist gone, seasons are mostly a driving-conditions and scenery change now, not a reward calendar.

Skill Chains, Skill Points, and Car Mastery

Near-misses, drifts, airtime, wreckage, and clean racing string into skill chains. Crashing ends a chain and cancels the multiplier you were building. Skill Points unlock nodes in each car's Car Mastery tree. Trees differ from car to car. Some nodes give Influence or Skill multipliers, some give a Wheelspin or Super Wheelspin, and some give credits. Farming Skill Points with a good drift or stunt car, then spending them on cars whose trees give Super Wheelspins, is one of the classic ways to grind.

Wheelspins and Super Wheelspins

A Wheelspin is one prize: a car, credits, clothing, a horn, or an emote.
A Super Wheelspin is three prizes at once.
You get them from leveling up, some Car Mastery nodes, and progression rewards. Duplicate cars can be sold or gifted.

Houses

Buying houses around the map gives you extra garage spots and fast-travel spawn points, and many come with a one-time or ongoing perk. Look at the perk before you buy. Some pay for themselves quickly through Wheelspins or credits.

PI Classes and Tuning

Every car has a Performance Index rating in a class: D, C, B, A, S1, S2, X. Events limit classes, and upgrades push a car's PI up.

Building Cars: A Practical Tuning Primer

You don't need to be a tuning expert. This routine gets you most of the way:

Choose the discipline first. Road, dirt, cross-country, and drift builds are very different.
Weight reduction and tyres first. Race or sport tyres for road, rally for dirt, off-road for cross-country and snow. Tyre compound is usually the best PI per point spent.
Drivetrain swap for traction. An AWD swap helps a lot in Winter, on dirt, and in cross-country, and it makes powerful cars much easier to drive.
Power last. More power without grip just gives you wheelspin. Add power until you hit the top of the class.
Download tunes. Use Find Tunes in the upgrade menu. Many community tunes are still shared. Sort by class and discipline, and try a few.
Adjust the basics. If the car understeers, soften the front anti-roll bar or stiffen the rear. If it oversteers, do the opposite. Tyre pressure and gearing are the next two settings to try.

Car Picks by Role (general guidance)

Role	What to look for
Road racing	Mid-engine or well-balanced RWD cars; AWD swaps for consistency
Dirt and rally	Rally-homologated AWD cars and classic rally hatches
Cross Country	Trophy trucks, buggies, and lifted AWD cars with off-road tyres
Drift	RWD cars with a drift tune, lots of steering angle, and a limited-slip differential set loose
Speed traps and zones	High top speed and stable aero. Hypercars tuned for speed
Skill farming	A stable drift car or a fast car on a route with lots of near-misses and drift zones

The balance meta changed over years of patches. For the best car per class, check a recent community tuning thread instead of an old meta list.

Money and Garage Tips

Auction House: you can buy rare cars and sell duplicates, but trade volume is far lower than at the game's peak. Set a fair buyout and be patient.
Sell or gift duplicates. Wheelspins give lots of repeats. Keep one of each.
Raise the difficulty for payouts. Drivatar difficulty and turning assists off both raise the credit bonus percentage.
Car Mastery nodes with credits are a free return on Skill Points.
Don't buy every hypercar. Most events cap the class. An A-class or S1 build that suits the event will win more races than a stock X-class car you can't enter.

DLC Expansions (owned copies only)

Expansion	What it adds
Fortune Island	A separate, rugged northern island with extreme weather (including lightning storms and auroras), a treasure hunt, harder roads, and new cars. Great for high-speed driving and a challenge
LEGO Speed Champions	A LEGO Valley map and campaign, brick-built cars, and a lighter, family-friendly progression

Both expansions were removed from sale on June 25, 2024, ahead of the base game's delisting in December. If you own them they still work. If you don't, there's no way to buy them now.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Buying cars you can't enter in anything. Check the class restriction first.
Leaving all assists on forever. Traction and stability control slow you down and lower payouts. Try braking-line-only first, then turn it off.
Driving Winter events on summer tyres. Snow punishes tarmac setups. Fit rally or snow tyres and consider an AWD swap.
Crashing during skill chains. One crash ends the chain. Bank your points by driving clean for a moment before you try anything risky.
Treating the Playlist as still live. Old guides tell you to "complete this week's Playlist." That system ended with Series 77.
Ignoring Car Mastery trees. Some cars have Super Wheelspin or credit nodes. Selling them before you spend the points wastes value.
Buying the "fastest" car for off-road events. Off-road favors suspension travel and tyres, not top speed.

Advanced Tips

Manual with clutch is the fastest input setup on a controller or wheel once you learn it. It shifts faster than automatic.
Use Rewind freely in single player. It doesn't cost anything, so use it to learn corners instead of restarting.
Frozen-lake shortcuts in Winter can cut huge chunks off cross-country and free-roam routes. Learn where they are.
Tune for each season. Save separate tunes (such as "Summer grip" and "Winter AWD") for the same car and swap them.
Photo Mode also counts toward progression goals. A quick photo of a new car at a landmark finishes several objectives.
Upgrade Heroes, when you have spare Influence, are fun build challenges for learning the upgrade system.
Check the Car Mastery tree right after a Wheelspin. Spend Skill Points on anything that says Super Wheelspin first.

Achievement Notes

Achievements tied to the Festival Playlist ("Encore?", "Cashing in", "Perfectionist" and similar) needed live weekly content. Developers warned in July 2024 that Series 77 was the last chance. Treat them as unobtainable now unless the official channels say otherwise.
Campaign, showcase, Barn Find, Horizon Story, and expansion achievements can all still be done solo.
Online achievements depend on whether you can find matches. Don't count on filling a lobby at off-peak hours.

FAQ

Can I still buy Forza Horizon 4? No. It was delisted from Steam and the Microsoft Store on December 15, 2024. You can still play it if you already own it. If you don't, get Forza Horizon 5 or Forza Horizon 6.

Will my copy stop working? Delisting ends sales, not ownership. You can still download and play from your library. As of September 2026, no official shutdown of online services had been announced in the game's Steam news feed.

Is the Festival Playlist still running? No. Series 77 (July 25 to late August 2024) was the final Festival Playlist, so the weekly Seasonal Championship rewards and Playlist-exclusive cars stopped with it.

Is FH4 worth playing in 2026 if I already own it? Yes, for the British map, the seasons, the Horizon Stories, and Fortune Island. It holds up well. Go to FH5 or FH6 for an active online community and new content.

What's the fastest way to make credits? Raise the difficulty and payout percentage, spend Skill Points on Car Mastery nodes that give credits or Super Wheelspins, sell duplicate Wheelspin cars, and look out for perks when you buy houses.

Should I use AWD swaps? For Winter, dirt, cross-country, and most high-power builds, yes. It's the most forgiving way to use power. For drifting and some road-racing tunes, keep RWD.

What replaced FH4? Forza Horizon 5 (Mexico, 2021) and Forza Horizon 6 (Japan, released May 19, 2026 on Xbox Series X|S and PC, with a PS5 version announced for later in 2026).