Playground Games

Credits

Descriptions by
IAmJefferson

Captures by
IAmJefferson

Video captures courtesy of
Broken Saw and Zazizken Quantum Quack

Background

Playground Games Limited is a British video game developer based in Leamington Spa, England and was founded in 2010 by Gavin Raeburn, Trevor Williams and Ralph Fulton. The company is known for developing the Forza Horizon video game series. In November 2017, they opened a second studio in St. Albans House, Leamington Spa, in order to focus on developing a non-racing open-world video game project, which it would later be revealed as a reboot of Fable at the 2020 Xbox Series X Games Showcase. At E3 2018, Microsoft announced that they had acquired Playground Games, which it became a part of Microsoft Studios (now Xbox Game Studios).

(October 23, 2012-)

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Logo: On a black background, we see a car dashboard that is lighting up. As we zoom in through the dashboard, we see one of the gauges going up from 0 to 160 miles per hour, then it went down to 0 miles per hour as the door ajar light blinks for 3 times. Then, an indicator with a symbol of a child playing the swing set blinked on screen with the words "Playground Games."

Variants:

• From the release of Forza Horizon in 2012 until the release of Forza Horizon 3 in 2016, the logo is shown in a yellow color.
• Starting with Forza Horizon 3 and its subsequent games, the logo's color was changed from yellow to orange and a small "TM" trademark symbol was added besides the logo. Additionally, the color of the dashboard's gauges were changed from blue to cyan.

Technique: The camera zooming in to the dashboard and the animation of the dashboard. The logo features a combination of 2D animation (the dashboard) and 3D effects (the camera movement and the glow on the dashboard).

Music/Sounds: The logo starts with a combination of muffled background music and crowd noise, following with a sound of a key being inserted into the ignition switch. Then the car starts to chime as the door ajar light blinks for 3 times, with the last chime being used to reveal the logo.

Music/Sound Variant: From Forza Horizon 3 until Forza Horizon 4, the logo will segue to the 2nd Turn 10 Studios logo as it fades out.

Availability: Common.

• The yellow version of the logo can be seen on Forza Horizon 1 and on the Xbox One version of Forza Horizon 2 and Forza Horizon 2 Presents: Fast & Furious, which both of these games have been delisted from the Microsoft Store since October 20, 2016 and October 1, 2018, respectively.
• The orange version can be seen on Forza Horizon 3, Forza Horizon 4 and subsequent games. The former game has been delisted from the Microsoft Store since September 27, 2020.
• Both of these games that are delisted from the Microsoft Store can still be purchased in their respective physical copies, with the exception of the Windows 10 version of Forza Horizon 3, which it was only available digitally on the Microsoft Store.

Legacy: This logo is a favorite among Forza Horizon fans, due to its animation and its combination of muffled background music and crowd noise, as well as the usage of car sound effects.