Last Friday, Brazilian developer Aquiris dropped out Horizon Chase 2 on AppleArcade. It is the studio’s first real successor of 2015 Horizon Chase, a popular arcade racer that was originally released for mobile devices but has since made its way onto every gaming platform. The sequel was a long time coming, but Aquiris eased the wait with years of support and touching expansions dripping with nostalgia.
Horizon Chase 2 feels like a victory lap for one of the few series that keeps the flame of old-school racing games alive. It’s not hugely different from its predecessor as it still mimics the gameplay and general feel of pre-polygonal era sprite-scaling racers like run out, Super Monaco GP And especially, Top gear.
The most profound difference is in the track design. While the first Horizon Chase focused on replicating the flat perspective of racing on Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo with scarce 3D resources, Horizon Chase 2 features richer, fully-constructed 3D environments that bridge the gap between the series’ inspiration and the wave of titles that would follow, brought about by the likes of Ridge Racer and Daytona USA.
The last group contains the racing games I personally grew up with, so it’s lovely to watch Horizon Chase develop much in the same way as technology allowed through the 1990s. But rest assured – Horizon Chase 2 still plays as Top gear, with its pseudo-on-rails steering that subtly guides you into the corners. It lacks the physical freedom I personally prefer, but it’s perfectly suited to a mobile context, where precise analog control isn’t something most gamers have access to.
The primary feature addition for Horizon Chase 2 is online multiplayer. Now you can party with your friends and use the game’s Playground mode, which pits your group into a field of AI competitors for a quick race, or challenge multi-race tournaments. It is an addition that Aquiris is very enthusiastic about, as witnessed in a conversation I had with General Manager Nando Guimaraes.
“We Have Seven Years” [since Horizon Chase’s release] with experienced players giving us different feedback and insights,” Guimaraes told me. “We follow them on our channels, and all these seven years they’ve asked for a lot of things that we thought were really nice to have. And we always try to deliver for those things, but one in particular – two actually – we couldn’t deliver right away Horizon Chase.”
Online multiplayer was easily the most requested, Guimaraes said. The ability to customize cars at a more detailed level was also inspired by popular demand. “We have specific, individual upgrades for each of these cars, and in Horizon Chase we had one for all of them.”
Those are the notable additions on day one, but Aquiris plans the same support that drew players back to the original Horizon Chase and Horizon Chase Turbo, to give the sequel an equally long shelf life.
“New cars, new customizable parts, new tracks of course, new countries to play [in] as well as new mechanics. And, if we’re lucky, why don’t we get an extra IP like Senna forever and make something amazing [as the license].” Guimaraes laughed. “I wouldn’t say ‘bigger’ because, you know, it’s a national hero. Senna is our number one hero in Brazil.”
Guimaraes added that Aquiris will continue to experiment with adaptations to the traditional Horizon Chase formula. That could mean new camera perspectives — like Senna forever had – or even more profound changes. The studio is not ready to get specific at this point, but just because I know them power listen i think run outstyle mode with branching paths would prove to be a surefire hit. Or maybe a Super persevere-inspired two-wheel spin-off?
One thing that hasn’t changed is the soundtrack. Horizon Chase 2 marks the return of Barry Leitch – the prolific Scottish video game music composer who gave Top gear his signature score. A score so famous in Brazil, it is can bring fans of an entire event hall to their knees. Aquiris asked Leitch to contribute to the first Horizon Chase, and he’s back for this one too.
“Barry Leitch – he must be there,” Guimaraes told me. “It’s a law. If you want to do something in that style, you need to have Barry Leitch on board. And he’s just pure charisma, right? That Scottish accent, when he joins us in the encounters, it just raises the morale. At this point on Discord, people were asking ‘Do you want to start all the music and the songs of the game, because we want to listen?’ And then out of the blue – he didn’t even talk to us – Barry Leitch just went over there and sent all his music from the game!
Straight away, Horizon Chase 2 is exclusive to Apple Arcade. That will change in 2023, when Aquiris brings it to PC and consoles. At launch, the game hit 60 frames per second on my iPhone 11 Pro and M1 MacBook Air, with sporadic drops. I asked Guimaraes if the studio would look for even higher frame rates on the devices they can handle, such as the iPhone 14 Pro with its 120Hz ProMotion display.
“It’s something we want to do,” he told me. “I can’t promise now because it was a technical problem with us. It runs at 60 frames [per second] and then 30 frames, but to get 120 frames and use all of the ProMotion, all Apple actually does is work we want to do. I just can’t say when exactly.”
There are some kinks that need to be worked out. Controller compatibility in certain menus proved a bit buggy when I played on my Mac, for example. Nevertheless, the pure arcade racing magic shines through, and Horizon Chase 2 will probably become my favorite mobile racer in the near future. If its predecessor is any indication, it will only get sweeter with age.
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