The man who architected the Forza franchise, Dan Greenawalt, is reportedly leaving Microsoft after nearly 30 years at the company. This comes weeks after a massive restructuring across the tech giant’s Xbox gaming division that has effectively folded Seattle’s Turn 10 Studios, the longtime keeper of the now-defunct Forza Motorsport series, into Playground Games’ U.K-based operation.
Trevor Williams, who helms Playground, the developer behind Forza Horizon, addressed the news to staff. “It’s hard to overstate Dan’s impact over the past 27 years,” Williams’ memo, seen by The Verge, reads. “From shipping Project Gotham Racing on the original XBOX in 2001 to leading the creation of Forza, founding Turn 10 Studios and appearing so many times on our E3 stage, usually making a dramatic entrance with a supercar in tow—and so much more—we owe tremendous thanks and gratitude to Dan. On behalf of both teams, I would like to thank Dan for his leadership, his support, and his partnership. I wish him well for whatever comes next.”
Greenawalt will supposedly remain an advisor to Playground for some length of time “while he transitions to his next phase,” in Williams’ words. While Greenawalt did not directly shape Forza Horizon, he did architect the first four Motorsport games—considered by most fans to be the series’ most dominant era—before moving into a Creative Director role.
The first Horizon, which released in 2012, established a formula that Playground Games would perfect in subsequent releases, to massive critical and commercial acclaim. But it never would’ve been possible without the technical foundation and massive store of content that Horizon was able to lift from the Greenawalt’s Motorsport titles. Horizon had a running start, if you will, to meld the previously highly distinct genres of open-world arcade racing and sim racing, and Motorsport was why.
More than a decade earlier, Greenawalt got his start at Microsoft as a test engineer for Xbox’s launch-era, pre-Forza racing software, namely Midtown Madness, RalliSport Challenge, and Project Gotham Racing. These were fantastic games (what I would give for a new RalliSport or PGR today!) that paved the way for Microsoft to take a big swing at Sony’s Gran Turismo years later, which practically invented the driving sim “car-PG” genre.
So many competitors, from Sega to Capcom to Konami and others, tried to take GT on and fell short, at least where sales were concerned. Forza Motorsport was the one that stuck and arguably took the lead in the Xbox 360’s heyday. Forza let you do what GT refused to at the time—bang up your vehicles, swap engines, fit aftermarket exterior parts, and paint liveries—and then let you share your creations with the world, online. Sony didn’t catch up for a generation. And Dan Greenawalt, who often talked about a desire to turn gamers into car enthusiasts and vice versa, had the vision.
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