Forza Horizon 5 would make a great desert island game

You've had the conversations before, of course. If you could only chose one album to take to a desert island, what would it be? (Beastie Boys, Paul's Boutique). If you could only watch one film for the rest of your life, what would you choose? (Jaws, of course). What book would you pick if you were going to be locked in a small cell until you died. (The Stand, Stephen King). 

But have you had that chat about video games? There is an entirely different set of criteria with games, because - as opposed to digging deep into a work upon heavy repetition, games can actually grow and be augmented. They can allow contact with the outside world. They can serve as a window into another time and place, providing important social and emotional outlets that you might not get from a book or a film.

That's why I think that Forza Horizon 5 would make a fantastic desert island game. There are so many reasons you would want to take Horizon 5 to a desert island, not the least of which is the fact that you can casually cruise around a beautiful world for a lovely change of scenery. But here are a bunch of other reasons off the top of my head:

• The game is enormous. There are literally hundreds of races and events.
• Each race is full of challenge, which can be ratcheted up to higher difficulty levels if you start to get bored. 
• There is a full-fledged battle royale game, just kinda casually tossed into the world like it was nothing.
• Each car can be leveled up individually, and there are over 500 cars.
• Let's face it - the better cars are harder to drive. There is a ton of room to practice and get better in order to achieve mastery over some of these beasts.
• You can spend days and days creating custom paint jobs for your cars.
• The community is constantly creating new events to play, so you will never run out of stuff to do.
• There are plenty of social options to keep people that like that sort of thing busy for a long, long time.
• After all of the expansions are added, this game will be the size of a small country.
• I just downloaded a Jeep that has been redesigned to look like a Jeep from Jurassic Park, which is dope.

I'm not trying to say that I want to play Forza Horizon 5 for the rest of my life. But I am saying that if you could only choose one game to play for the rest of your life, you could do far worse then selecting a playground of fun and delight like Horizon 5. Just remember to pause every once in a while to gather coconuts and hunt for crabs. You gotta eat every now and then. 

Forza Horizon 5 is out today on Xbox consoles and Game Pass.