IGN
As IGN originally reported, Forza Motorsport 5 will not require a persistent online connection to play – unless of course you're in multiplayer modes such as Rivals or online racing, or doing cloud Drivatar training or downloading user-generated content such as paint schemes. However, Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt told us today that being be required to connect to Xbox Live before you can play is "not the plan." You just need to connect online eventually in order to complete the career mode.
"In the beginning of the game, the player will be racing against Drivatars that are contained on the disc and were trained by the [Turn 10 development] team," Greenawalt said. "While playing, the player will be asked to connect to Live in order to download a completely fresh set of player-created Drivatar opponents – it’s not a lot of data, but the download contains enough Drivatars to cover all difficulty settings. Connecting will also download new content – but the vast majority of the launch content is contained on the disc.
"This download is simply additional cars and tracks. The gameplay is not blocked while downloading the additional content; it’s done in the background just like disc install."
None of these offline installation scenarios apply to digitally purchased versions of the game, obviously.
Here's where the eventually part comes in. "The player won't be blocked from playing the game" if they've never connected it to Xbox Live, Greenawalt said. "But deeper areas in the career mode were designed to utilize these additional cars and tracks."
He clarified even further.
"This is similar to what we did on Forza Motorsports in the last generation as well – shipping both free and premium content at launch. In some ways it’s similar to the Disc 2 content in FM4 as well. However, this time (unlike DLC tracks in previous Forza’s) deeper progression in the career mode was designed to fully integrate this launch downloadable content."
Should you lose your connection while you're playing, Greenawalt said, "You’ll be able to play Forza Motorsport 5 in Career mode, Free Play, and other offline modes. Like Xbox 360 cloud saves, the next time you connect, your save game progress will automatically synch with Xbox Live."
Greenawalt also shed extra light on how the Drivatar system works with and without an Internet connection. He told IGN, "While the Drivatar feature is designed to take advantage of Xbox Live and the processing power of the cloud, its revolutionary approach to opponent has been designed to work offline as well. Racing against the Drivatars of others does not require a connection. Drivatar learning and training does require a connection to the cloud as it’s a real-time training system. Any time that you connect Forza Motorsport 5 to the Live servers, you will automatically download a refreshed set of Drivatar opponent data."
He added that downloading fresh Drivatar data is "not a lot of data."
What about your Xbox Live friends? Will you still see your friends' Drivatars when playing offline?
"Not necessarily. When you first connect Forza Motorsport 5 to the Live servers, you will download a set of Drivatar opponents (it’s not a lot of data, but it contains enough Drivatars to cover all difficulty settings) for use in offline mode. This set of Drivatars will not necessarily contain your friends. From race to race as you stay connected, your friend’s Drivatars, cars, and paint schemes will be pulled into your races – as will updated Drivatar strangers and rivals based on your difficulty settings."
Forza Motorsport 5 is due to launch on the same day the Xbox One console does this November.
http://ie.ign.com/articles/2013/07/18/forza-motorsport-5-install-offline-details-clarified
