Forza Motorsport 7 wants you to care about your driver, too

Forza Motorsport 7 has drawn criticism since debuting earlier this week for an in-game economy that seems to put a throttle on your progression to encourage you to buy loot boxes. Forza developer Turn 10 Studios has not flipped the switch to enable players to purchase those crates with real money yet, but all the hooks are already in the game. Those include cosmetic items, but not for your vehicles — instead, this is the first Forza to put an emphasis on your driver.

As usual, the push for cosmetics is about engagement. The company wants people chasing after more than just wins and better cars, and custom driver clothing is a part of that. But Turn 10 has always let people go wild decorating their Subarus and Hondas and sharing those decal designs with one another. It couldn’t and didn’t try to pull back on that to sell those items instead. That’s where drivers come in.