Toyota heads back to Forza with Mk4 Supra

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to drive an officially-licensed Toyota road car in a game other than Gran Turismo Sport or Project Cars 2, but the Big T is finally set to make a push back into the world of mainstream gaming.

Announced earlier today, the fourth-generation Toyota Supra will be added into the vehicle lineup of Forza Horizon 4 in an update scheduled for December 12. That means all of you long-suffering Supra fiends will be able to spend the bulk of your Christmas break hooning around a virtual England at the helm of one of Toyota’s most iconic sports cars.

Why is this big news? Well, Toyota has been largely absent from car games in recent years, and a rumoured deal with Polyphony Digital, creator of the Playstation-exclusive Gran Turismo Sport, is the likely reason why.

3

In GT Sport players are able to enjoy a bevy of notable Toyota vehicles, including the classic Toyota Sports 800 and 2000GT, the drift icon AE86 Sprinter Trueno, the Toyota 86 in various forms, the Mk4 Supra and the present-day GR Supra - not to mention a bevy of Toyota racecars.

Most other games either don’t feature Toyotas at all, or they’re unlicensed and un-branded facsimiles of the real deal. Project Cars 2 is one notable exception and offers a driveable Toyota 86 road car, while Forza Motorsport 7 gives you… a jacked-up Hilux.If you’re a die-hard Toyota fan, you’re basically railroaded into buying a Playstation 4.

Why did Toyota go gun-shy on gaming? After all, earlier titles like Need For Speed Underground 2 allowed you to drive and modify the Supra, Celica and Sprinter. A recent tweet by Toyota UK stated that the company didn’t condone games that “promote illegal street racing” (a response to a question about why the new Supra was absent from Need For Speed: Heat), but that tweet was retracted soon after.

3

The imminent addition of the Supra to Forza Horizon 4, a game entirely based around street racing, suggests that wasn’t the reason anyway, and the presence of the AE86 Sprinter in upcoming drift title Drift 19 also throws water on the “Gran Turismo exclusive” theory.

Does this mean we’ll soon see more Toyotas on non-Gran Turismo titles? Here’s hoping, but the question is which Toyota should they add next? Let us know.

Sign up here to get the free weekly WhichCar eNewsletter