Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: a world of death-defying, die cast-inspired racing on life-sized toy tracks. A freeway-scale jumble of giant orange raceways, jumps, and loops across which you spill the contents of a dozen of the world’s greatest car museums. Actually you’ve definitely heard it before, because Playground Games did the same thing not all that long ago, in 2017’s much-loved Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels expansion. Sadly, that’s been delisted for some time now, so we’re all fortunate that Playground is putting the pedal to the Mattel all over again for its first expansion for Forza Horizon 5. Granted, driving supersized toy cars isn’t as surprising and novel as it was the first time around, but with the power of Forza Horizon 5 behind it and a progression system that pushes you to play with every toy in the box, it’s better than ever.

While Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels is similar to Forza Horizon 3’s version on the surface, there are a few key differences that quickly become apparent. The big one is that progression is gated in a new way, first restricting us to cars from B-class or below. The higher classes aren’t unlocked until you progress through each phase of competition in the Hot Wheels Academy. This does stop us from taking out our fastest cars immediately but it’s a system I like because of how it encourages me to think more about the cars I have in the lower performance class and reengage with them, dusting off old favorites. So even though there doesn’t seem to be quite the same amount of things to do as there are in Forza Horizon 4’s LEGO expansion, rather than having people immediately gravitate to the fastest handful of cars in the enormous vehicle roster, Horizon 5 Hot Wheels accomplishes the opposite. The expansion gives us the hulking new Hot Wheels-inspired Baja Bone Shaker straight off the bat, but we’re not restricted to it; any B-class car from your own garage will be sufficient initially.

The nine other cars this expansion adds are a real grab bag of models, though there are only three more overtly Hot Wheels-themed ones: the angular and aggressive Bad to the Blade, the fan-favourite Deora II, and a Hot Wheels-branded COPO Camaro. The remainder are pretty random and, while I am a true fan of the Brabham BT62, there admittedly doesn’t appear to be any tangible Hot Wheels synergy with them. It does feel a bit like six cars that were simply going to be ready come the arrival of the pack rather than six cars that feel like they’re necessarily designed to be here.