A Forza To Be Reckoned With

November 2017


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The latest installment in Microsoft’s highly successful racing video game franchise returns. Forza Motorsport 7’s [Turn 10 Studios] release comes off the back of last year’s critically acclaimed Forza Horizon 3 [Playground Games].

SIDE have had the honor of working on the last three Forza Motorsport releases and all three games in their new open world-focused Forza Horizon series. Forza Motorsport 7 was a joint venture for both SIDE London and SIDE LA, with the majority of recordings handled by our team in Marina del Rey. Our Lead Sound Engineer for this project, James Battley, had the exciting task of interviewing leading figures from the world of Motorsport, including: Ken Block, Patrick Long, Tanner Foust, Josef Newgarden, Shannon McIntosh, and Katherine Legge.

The recording setup was quite unique for video games. Sessions were conducted in an informal interview style, guided by a rough set of questions asked by Turn 10’s motorsport guru, John Schommer (pictured), who let the conversation flow organically. Engineer James told us, “We were capturing the whole conversation for snippets to be cropped out later. It was important for the Forza team to have a natural delivery from the drivers, preventing the conversation from becoming stilted. From their experience, they found that not all drivers were good script readers but were much more comfortable speaking freely about their passion of motorsports”.

James, who recently moved from SIDE London to join our team in LA, embraced the whole experience: “We recorded at our studio in LA during the Long Beach Indie Grand Prix, and in Atlanta, where a bunch of racing drivers are based. It was great visiting other parts of the country and it was inspiring listening to some very talented people talk about what they love.”

Forza Motorsport 7 is out now on Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.