The creative director of Forza Horizon 5 has unveiled the debut title from his new studio, Maverick Games, and it’s an open world racing game called Clutch.
For as good as Forza Horizon 6 is, it is still very similar to Forza Horizon 5, with a change of setting but very little in the way of new ideas.
The eventual Forza Horizon 7 will need to rectify this, since the last thing the series needs is to grow complacent and not offer anything but a change of scenery with each game.
What may help it, is that it’s about to get some meaningful competition that will keep Microsoft and Playground Games on their toes, as a studio comprised of former Forza Horizon developers has announced its own open world racing game, called Clutch.
Based in Leamington Spa (the same town where Playground Games hails from), Maverick Games has been teasing its debut title for the past 10 days, with a countdown on its YouTube channel.
The countdown ended earlier today and led to a video hosted by studio founder and creative director Mike Brown, who previously served as the creative director of Forza Horizon 5 while at Playground Games.
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The video only shows fleeting glimpses of the game, including what could be snippets of gameplay. Like GTA 6, the high fidelity graphics make it difficult to tell when cut scenes end and gameplay begins.
Brown bills Clutch as being ‘about the love of driving, about the connection between car and driver, and the raw thrill of speed’ and boasts about how authentic the cars will appear in-game, promising visible wear-and-tear and citing the advantages of a custom version of Unreal Engine 5 and a three year development cycle (which is very short nowadays).
The cars can be fully customised, right down to the interiors, including the decorations on the dashboard, drinks holders, and hats and jumpers you can leave strewn on the seats.
What’s especially interesting about Clutch, though, is that unlike Forza Horizon it’s going to offer a proper story – one penned by Jamie Brittain, co-writer on the award winning TV drama Skins – about a pair of siblings competing in a prestigious racing tournament.
However, races won’t be confined to the professional tracks as the protagonists will also be involved with underground street races and cross paths with law enforcement, resulting in high-speed getaways.
Right near the end of the video, Brown mentions that cars can also receive special modifications for exploring the open world. One nifty looking example that’s demonstrated is a grappling hook of some kind that attaches to poles and lets you sharply drift – like the Batmobile in the original Tim Burton movie.
While details are slim, the wait for new info won’t be long, as a proper trailer is already scheduled to debut during Summer Game Fest. As a reminder, the event takes place this Friday, June 5 from 10pm BST.
Clutch has a release window of spring 2027 and will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. By that time, Forza Horizon 6 will have arrived for the PlayStation 5 too, so it’ll be interesting to see if Clutch can coax away any Forza players.
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