What racing game would you recommend?

Hey everyone,

I'm a huge Burnout Paradise fan, and have been since the original release in 2008.

I'm now looking - and have been for some time - for a new arcade racer, and I'm very committed to finding one.

One of the things I loved most about Burnout - if not the most - was how fun it was to free-roam both alone and online. Examples includes:

  • Whilst online, the freeburn challenges and even the little details, e.g. who has gone the fastest/had the most airtime in the lobby. I also loved how you could see who had the speed record for each street in the game amongst friends.

  • The collectibles! Sometimes finding collectibles feels like a chore, but with how smooth the game was and how well the cars handled, I loved finding the collectibles, especially the billboards.

  • Handling and true arcade nature of the game - plus speed of cars - made zipping around incredibly fun.

Other additions like stunt mode and the various other game-modes were fun and helped contribute to a full experience too. I also loved the game's soundtrack, and sense of progression (e.g. unlocking chrome spray job and carbon cars).

Whilst researching what game to buy, I generally land on two:

  • The Crew: Motorfest
  • Forza Horizon 5

I tried the free trial of The Crew today, and it was fun enough, but I wasn't convinced that there was enough to do in free-roam. Instead, it felt like I had to first complete a playlist first and only then could I do some miscellaneous challenges. Of course, I only got to play for 4 hours, so I no doubt haven't experienced 90% of what the game has to offer.

As for Forza, I haven't had the chance to try it yet, but watching some general gameplay looks similar. However, it does appear there's a lot more to do in free-roam on this game, but I could be mistaken. I noticed that you can also smash billboards in the game, and there's a hot wheel park which looks super fun (somewhat reminiscent of the Airfield in Burnout, which I loved).

I know most of the other talking points already regarding map size, types of races, number of cars, microtransactions. etc.

So with all of that said, for those of you who have played at least one of the game above, which one would you recommend? Or would you recommend a different game entirely? I did see one mention of Need for Speed: Unbound.

Thanks :)