Rumours continue to trickle in regarding Forza Motorsport 3, the next instalment of the hugely-popular racing series from developer Turn 10.
We've been told to expect hundreds of cars and tracks, and industry sources have hinted at a Q4 2009 release. However, fans of the series - myself included - have yet to get their hands on any concrete information and we're left scouring Turn 10's weekly pitpass report in the hope of new information.
Way back in July 2008, Forza Motorsport community manager Che Chou managed to catch our attention by stating that Turn 10's "software architects have figured out ways to push the 360 in ways I didn't think were possible in terms of both visuals and performance."
This week, he's at it again and states in his latest pitpass report that progress on Turn 10's next game continues, and that fans are likely to appreciate what they see when the game is unveiled.
Elaborating just a touch, Che points out that he has been "spending quite a lot of time just admiring the game from a visual standpoint", adding that "the past few weeks have seen the graphics really come into its own".
Having been absent from pitpass reports in recent weeks, Che states "my focus has been solely on our future project, making sure that we deliver on our aspirations for what we think are some pretty awesome community features and ways for those who love cars (and speedboats/helicopters) to interact with each other. Secrecy being what it is, now is obviously not the time to divulge such details. Besides, when we do announce our next game and show you what it looks like, it’ll be done with a bang, not just the whimper of a blog post."
The wait just doesn't seem to end, and though we're itching to put rubber on the tracks of Forza Motorsport 3, we're ever-so-slightly worried about Che's mention of speedboats and helicopters - here's hoping that's little more than a joke.
Summing up the future project's visuals, the Turn 10 team tells us it's spending plenty of time with the game's photomode, and captures from the latest build are described simply as a "portfolio of car porn".
Although release dates remain unknown, we're expecting 2010 to be a scorching year for race fans - after all, we might just see the Xbox 360's Forza Motorsport 3 and PlayStation 3's Gran Turismo 5 race into stores around the same time. Judging by Turn 10's latest comments, the Forza team is doing its utmost to match - or, perhaps, surpass - Gran Turismo's dazzling visuals.
