It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of the Forza Horizon franchise. Every single one has been nothing less than brilliant, and so when longtime designer-turned-Forza-Horizon-5-creative-director Mike Brown left Playground Games to found Maverick Games just three years ago, I figured I’d be interested in whatever he and his new team had up their collective sleeve. It was a safe bet, but a correct one, as the studio’s first project is very much up my alley – and will probably appeal to plenty of my fellow Forza Horizon fans.

It’s called Clutch, and while it does feature multiplayer, it’s a more single-player-focused open-world driving game than Forza Horizon. It’s set in a spectacular place, like Horizon – the south of France, including Monaco and the French Riviera – and it’s packing plenty of real-world cars from the likes of Porsche, Aston Martin, BMW, Land Rover, and Renault, among others. It’s also got a rewind button, which Forza (albeit, Forza Motorsport) invented in racing games.

But that’s about where the similarities end. Because while Horizon is about the festival from which the series takes its name, Clutch is very much about your player character, Theo Martial, and his sister Cass. The two of you have always been obsessed with cars, and as young adults, they find themselves making ends meet as, effectively, vigilantes – doing delivery runs for less-than-above-board people. You’ll meet plenty of characters and experience plenty of drama; quite honestly, I don’t really want to ruin any of the plot points, as the story is set to be a significant calling card for Clutch. I suppose what I will say is that a lot of what I saw from Clutch’s narrative reminded me of the recent Brad Pitt blockbuster F1 – not in terms of plot points, per se, but with regard to tone and spirit. This is a good thing, to be clear, as I had a blast watching that movie. If Clutch’s story is just as fun as F1’s, I think I’ll be in for a treat.

A lot of what I saw from Clutch’s narrative reminded me of the recent Brad Pitt blockbuster movie F1.“

Within that story, you’ll be doing plenty of familiar Forza Horizon-like things: racing, driving, and drifting – but sometimes with a more cinematic flair. For instance, one mission I saw during my brief demo tasked us with finding a rare Aston Martin Valhalla (seriously, open another tab and look this car up if you haven’t seen it; it’s borderline alien in its exotic appearance and practically a street-legal F1 car). The problem was, the car is located in its wealthy owner’s penthouse. You’ve got to get it out of there…and you can imagine how that’s going to go.

Well…almost. There’s one part of that Valhalla escape that you definitely won’t be expecting: the harpoon you can fire from the car. No, Clutch isn’t trying to be Spy Hunter, but it is mixing in some arcadey additions to the basic arcadey driving formula. There are six total tools to unlock over the course of the campaign, and as the harpoon was the only one I saw, I can tell you that you can shoot it at any object in the game. You can use it for traversal, for instance, such as firing it at a lamppost on a corner to help you take a turn at higher speed, a la the Tim Burton Batmobile in the 1989 Batman film. I’m curious to see the remaining five tools and what cumulative effect they have on the gameplay, but on the whole, Clutch feels very similar to Forza Horizon in terms of its driving: it’s grounded in reality, but not a pure sim by any means.

I say that with a little bit of experience, as I did get to play one three-lap race at the end of my demo. Fortunately, rival-racer AI is aggressive, and you do need to drive smart and drive well in order to move up to the front of the pack. If Brown and the team were aiming for a similar handling feel as Forza Horizon, my first impression is that they’ve pretty well nailed it.

In all, I walked away quite happy with what I played of Clutch. I was intrigued by the characters and story I saw, the driving felt good, the setting is one I look forward to spending time in, and it seems like it’ll have a healthy complement of cars from different automakers – though I wouldn’t expect anything on the order of the 500+ cars that Forza Horizon brings to the table. I’m eager to see what more Clutch has to offer when it drops in Spring of 2027.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.