Earlier this summer, Microsoft finally provided an extensive look at the new Forza Motorsport and provided the not-too-far-off release window of spring 2023. Well, you may want to hold off on getting your engines too revved up. In the most recent Forza Monthly stream, Forza Motorsport general manager Dan Greenawalt and creative director Chris Esaki provided an update on the development of the game, and it sounds like Turn 10 have some road to travel yet.

　　According to Greenawalt, Forza Motorsport is currently in full production, but the final polishing stage won’t kick off into “sometime” in 2023. And that polishing stage won’t be a simple process, with Greenawalt cautioning that such things take “a lot of time.” You can read Greenawalt’s full rundown of how production phases work, and where Forza Motorsport is in the process, below…

　　“Generally, teams go through four phases. They have a concept phase, where you flare -- lots of new ideas, more than you could ever build. 10, 20 times the game you could ever build. And in this case, with Forza Motorsport, we were rethinking kind of everything. [...] Pre-production is the second phase. In pre-production, you're actually tooling up, you're making prototypes. You're proving out, "Is this any good? Does this feel right?" You try not to do too much of that, but it's an important phase. The next phase, and this is where we are right now, is production. In production you put your heads down and you build. The goal is to hit your dates, have great energy, great clarity, come together and build as a team.

　　And then the final stage, which will be entering as we get into next year, is polish. And polish is really critical. If you've got a massive game like [Forza] Motorsport and a lot of new systems you're rethinking, that's a lot of surface area to polish. And it takes a lot of time. The real art of game development, is not biting off more than you can polish. [...] We're deep in production now, and we'll be heading into that polish phase, sometime in the next year.”

　　No delay has been announced for Forza Motorsport, and I suppose it could still arrive before the official end of spring on June 31, but don’t be too surprised if the game slips to the latter half of the year.

　　Forza Motorsport is coming to PC and Xbox Series X/S, and as of now, is still slated for spring 2023.