. Just for kicks, we booted up Forza Horizon 2 to see how it stacks up against DriveClub's new weather conditions. Playground Games' offering included weather right from the start, with some lovely effects work - but the open world gameplay means that the Xbox One title has very different priorities in how it handles its rendering budget, meaning that the overhead isn't there for the extreme precision Evolution chose to embrace instead. For example, DriveClub utilises dynamic globules for its droplets as opposed to the thin, alpha textures in Horizon 2. They do receive light but seemingly only from light posts rather than the cars' headlamps, which reduces the realism of the effect at night.
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More dramatically, the appearance of water on the car is simplified and less dynamic, with the utilisation of a nice water shader effect that creates attractive, but relatively static droplets. The beads of water are not impacted by speed or direction and do not streak realistically. The windshield wipers simply eliminate these droplets with each pass before more are formed, but the effect is a simple texture that gives the impression of wiping away the rain. In comparison, it really seems as if water is being pushed around dynamically in DriveClub. It should also be noted that, unlike DriveClub, Horizon 2's wipers appear to function in just two modes; on or off.
Additionally, surface properties don't receive the same attention either with leaves and other objects appearing identical regardless of weather conditions. Reflections are handled differently too - they're not screen-space in Horizon 2 but they show less detail, it seems, and are clipped somewhat near the camera. That said, at least in photo mode reflections of trees can appear in the shot even when the trees themselves aren't present in the specific angle. Lastly, Horizon 2 lacks the dynamic volumetric cloud system of DriveClub and its time of day transitions (particularly its shadows) aren't handled as smoothly. That's not to knock the game, of course, as Horizon 2 is still an absolutely beautiful racer with excellent image quality and a wide open approach to gameplay not found in the PS4 title, but it's an interesting juxtaposition of developer priorities.