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The Trouble with the Horizon Festival
- So in the Horizon Festivals, one can drive willy-nilly on main roads, which aren't closed off or anything? With civilian traffic using these roads? The organizers are basically asking for their little playground to be shut down right there, not to mention the lawsuits.
- In Horizon 4 at least, the festival does close the roads for races, and you can see barriers at junctions as well as Horizon-branded boards along the road. The sole exception is Street Scene events, which the game explicitly tells you aren't sanctioned by the festival at all and are indeed extremely illegal. For the open world? Simple answer - Rule of Fun. It would be an extremely boring game if Scotland Police or whoever pulled you over and arrested you for dangerous driving if they see you driving at 200mph down a motorway or through a field of sheep - not even GTA does that, and that series actually has police.
- Perhaps we could pretend the games take place in an alternate universe where some nano-technology exists so people can't die in traffic collisions and materials can magically be repaired in seconds. So crashes are only as inconvenient as another person bumping into you, and cars can be pristine for the next race even after being trashed by jumping off a cliff moments before.
The concept of Hot Wheels Park (especially in Horizon 5)
Sure, the real-life sized attraction is always amazing on paper, but the Hot Wheels example seems to go too far with its awesomeness. In fact, there's a lot of things that may render such an attraction unfeasible IRL. One: the entire complex of Horizon 5 is suspended way above Mexico (roughly a couple of miles high on the lower end). Two: three different ecosystems (lush rainforest, freezing mountainscape, arid desert) which are located not far from one another. Three: the physics of going through plastic roads, magnetized surfaces and even loops are totally fictional. Four: billions of tons of aforementioned plastic would be required for such an intricate network of roads (especially suspended way above the ground level). Five: excessive amounts of G forces - which are thankfully not depicted in the racing simulator. Six: had suspending the entire park above Mexico was mentioned already? It is understandable that Hot Wheels attraction is purely made for fun - but why go to such fantasy-inspired extremes?
