Starts every Thursday Night at 9:30 PM ET (6:30 PT)

Runs until people get tired (usually 12 AM - 1 AM ET)

Since November 2009, a subset of the Giant Bomb community has gathered to enjoy races and events with like-minded members in Forza Motorsport. From Forza Motorsport 3-6, and the Horizons, without missing a week(!), we have come together to be silly in cars.

The next Horizon festival is coming to the land down under, and will be one of the first titles to fully support cross-play between Xbox One and PC players for co-op singleplayer and multiplayer modes.

The game will launch on September 27th for most people, which means the first official race night will take place on the 29th. Those who purchase the Ultimate Edition of the game will be able to start playing on the 23rd.

Horizon 3 will feature clubs that allow 1000 members to join, while the multiplayer lobbies will allow 12 players, with 4 players for co-op.

In the past the official Giant Bomb club has been created by @jeff without invite restrictions. This means it will be first come first serve. If I'm assigned as Co-Leader of the club(assuming clubs work the same way as in the past) I can start removing inactive players from the club after a week or so to make room for new active members.

How To Join

1. Follow my gamertag, SushiXXX. You should be able to do this without needing my permission on the Xbox One.
2. A private lobby for Race Night will start just before 9:30 PM, I'll go through my list of followers and invite anyone playing Forza Horizon 3 into a party. This would be a good time to be playing Forza.
3. If you join us for a week, I'll probably follow you back, which means you can probably jump into Race Night lobbies without needing an invite. Probably.
4. We'll begin road tripping or free roaming.

Note: With X1 and PC players both able to join this time around, and only 11 empty spots in the multiplayer lobby, it will likely be difficult to join for the first few weeks at least. Don't worry, Race Night will always be there. NOTHING stops Race Night.

The Rules

Our standards are pretty simple, much like Giant Bomb's rules: Don't be a dick. So far, we haven't had any major issues with this, but allow me to elaborate with suggestions that will greatly help everyone's experience:

Don't intentionally crash others during races.

Forza Horizon 3 can handle heavy contact during races, and it's often encouraged, but there's a difference between hard racing and flying into a 30 MPH turn at 180 MPH to take out a pack of cars. Save that for the Drivatar AI.

If it looks a little dirty, no big deal. If you look like you're going to try and murder someone with a vehicle, at least call out Gran Turismo first. Give them some warning.

Be mindful of the voice chat.

With up to 12 people, there's going to be a lot of potential voice chat going on, and it's not always likely we'll be using party chat. Do keep in mind that sometimes I'll ask for race suggestions or someone will try to explain game modes to newbies in the lobby. Chattering over this sort of stuff only delays the fun times. Don't delay the fun times!

In addition, if someone's headset is acting up, most especially with echoes or high-pitched squeals, we'll ask you to try and fix it ASAP, since that almost completely prevents us from communicating with one another. It's highly frustrating. Usually, unplugging or muting the headset until you can deal with it is a good temporary fix if you're in the midst of racing when this crops up.

Other Things You Should Know

If you want to join, JOIN.

Don't mull over whether we have enough room or anything. Our fields are full of people with widely varying skills, and as long as you're willing to understand that racing's not always about finishing first, but finishing well, you should have a great time with us.

We don't mind if you're late.

Seriously. As long as we have open spots (and we will have open spots), we're looking for people until the end of Race Night. If you can only make it to Race Night an hour in, then you're good. Get in here.

You don't need any cars or DLC, but having a car for each class would be nice.

The car suggestion is for your own enjoyment, as earning less money from rental cars is rarely fun.

Have fun! That's what we're here for.

I am ready!

For anyone that this is their first Xbox game on PC, a couple of pointers.

Become familiar with the Xbox app. This is where you'll access your friends list, join parties, see your activity feed, and manage Game DVR settings.

The Game bar is a built in way to record video and take screenshots with Xbox games. (It even (sometimes) works with non-Xbox PC games.) If your settings allow it, things you capture with the Game bar will automatically post to your activity feed for your friends to see, just like on the Xbox One.

And of course, playing multiplayer Xbox games on PC doesn't require a Gold subscription, but obviously you'll still need a gamertag.

Sounds cool, sucks that I can't play Thursday nights.

Add me please!

GT: Cream in my pie

I'm going to have to change my day off back to Friday while FH3 is fresh. I had a blast playing FH2 with the group.

GT: Epidemik LV

Woooo!!!!!!

#Hype #LamborghiniPizzaClub

The only thing that matches my FH3 excitement is Race Night Down Under!

Can concur this is an awesome time with some really nice duders and Sushi is doing an excellent job continuing the tradition.

Do they even have pizza in the Outback or do we need to change it to #HoldenShrimpOnTheBarbieClub?

Are you even a real person?

@iron1c: no

I haven't done a race night yet but I will be able to with FH3.

In Ireland, so time doesn't suit but if online, I have no problem joining

Sweet, added to my calendar. Planning on hopping on this Thursday.

Sound like fun, I'll try and be around even if I am in the UK ;).

GT DANGERN00DLE (those are zeros).

British duder here, Gamertag is Stfn

9:30pm ET is on a weeknight is damn near impossible for us filthy Brits though...

If anyone else (aka @pandapower, @evanomeara) is in the EU feel free to add me and we can see if there's enough people to start an EU version.

On the flip side of this, turning of the DVR function can get you some CPU back, so you might try disabling it if you're having performance problems.

This is cross platform, yeah? PC and Xbox friends racin'? I'd be all over some of that.

Edit: As an aside, anyone know how to follow someone in the W10 Xbox app?

I'm excited to finally participate in one of these. The multiplayer in this game is fantastic.

Just to reiterate, don't get too discouraged if Race Night is full and you don't get to join us. I'll constantly be sending out invites throughout the night to those who are playing Horizon 3.

You'll be invited to an Xbox party for chat and H3 uses a player group system within the game. You're not obligated to talk, we also speak car horns.

A reminder that the multiplayer doesn't unlock until somewhere during the second festival and the Club feature won't unlock until during your third festival.

Currently the Giant Bomb club is about half full out of 1k.

@sushix: I was looking at the club standings and one account has several million xp..... How?!?

This starts at 11:30 am Friday here in Australia, but luckily for me it is a public holiday here in my state so I will try to Join you. I am on PC and have never tried to join an Xbox online event but I will do my best.

Just a warning, the PC chat stuff is still somewhat incomplete. As far as I can tell, there's no way to turn off in-game chat, and Xbox party chat has it's own application and chat channel, so PC users end up hearing double from other PC users. We had more luck just using in game chat for everything, but I'm sure that'll break down with the number of people that show up to GB nights.

I plan on jumping in tonight, if i get home soon enough. I've never really played these games online, but Horizon is one of my favorite franchises, so i'd love to get wild with some duders.

Gettin' _Wild_ with duders. Yup. Sticking with that one, not gonna rephrase.

I'm game tonight, even though it'll be about 2am my time. I am committed to the cause of the duders and will stay awake!

FOR HONOR! FOR JUSTICE! FOR LUCHADEER!

I probably won't be able to stay on for too long but I'll be playing for a bit after I get home so I'd be up for trying to join in, too. Here's hoping I'm not utter garbage when racing!

Spoilers: I probably will be!

Welp, I just unlocked Clubs and the club is already full. Dammit.

@razzuel: @razzuel: Keep an eye on it, there will likely be a few deletions as @Sushix clears inactives.

@pandapower: Since you mention it, is inactivity based on any play, online play, or specifically playing with your club?

Sorry, first Forza since the original!

@mmmslash: I believe it's based on XP gain, and you can't really touch the game without gaining at least a little bit of XP.

@chaser324: Fantastic, thanks!

I don't know how I didn't realize this before... Okay, so Xbox games on PCs are treated like apps. That means they have all the same privacy settings as say a Twitter app, for example.

Last week we experienced the issue of PC players getting an echo because voice was going through both the Xbox app and the game. Well you can deny the game permission to access your mic.

Go to Settings -> Privacy -> Microphone, and toggle Forza Horizon 3 off. (I'm at work right now so I can't actually check this, but it should be there.) @sushix I'm tagging you so you can let people know going forward.

Good thinking sir!

Nice, I've been complaining about that voice thing for the last week. Now if only they'd fix the sound to be 5.1 in my headphones.

Sorry I didn't show last night guys and girls. Half 2 in the morning was a little too early for me this time :,)

So it seems that Xbox Live has rolled out a new 'club' feature. We have created a club called Giant Bomb Forza Race Night and it should make it easier for everyone to join race night. Just send me(GT: SushiXXX) a request for invitation on Live(or Xbox app PC/mobile) and we'll get you in.

This seemed like a good place to mention this. The Blizzard Mountain expansion/dlc is on sale 50% off for Gold members. This brings the price down from $20 to $10.

I just "beat" the base game last week, and was debating pulling the trigger on this as I've heard good things. Grabbed it this morning.