Microsoft dropped a car 4,500 feet from a chopper because reasons

It sometimes feels like the glory days of PR are gone: the time when, to promote a new release, the office trainee would be shoved into a mascot costume and paraded around. I once saw a man dressed as Master Chief fall over. Sure it wasn't all great, but I've always enjoyed watching companies spaff money up the wall on a giant piece of Raiden graffiti.

Step forward then Xbox Australia and New Zealand, who decided that the best way to promote Forza Horizon 5 was to drop a Polaris out of a helicopter at almost 5,000 feet. Who cares about the when and why: Do you want to see a car parachute to the ground or not?

While we're at it, props to Xbox ANZ for what it did recently to promote Age of Empires 4: a cereal called Wolol-o's, loosely inspired by the fact that Age of Empires demo discs used to come in cereal packets.

An Age of Empires cereal called Wolol-o's — (Image credit: Microsoft)

PCG's own Phil Savage reckons Forza Horizon 5 is as good as the series has ever been, which is to say: very good indeed. The game runs like a dream for me but some PC players have experienced a startup bug, and if you're one of them here's how to work around it until Playground sends out a patch.

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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."