I was never really into racing games or even cars before I played this. In early 2017 I was bored and browsing the Xbox store. I saw "open-world racing" in the game's description and that this game had a demo so I shrugged and decided to give it a try. I was really impressed by the visuals and liked how much freedom you had to explore the map, I even remember the very moment I decided to buy it. I was flying the drone through the trees on a large hill, and the moment I flew over the top of the hill I was greeted by a beautiful sunset lighting up the horizon and game world, and in that moment it immediately clicked with me that I was going to buy the game. Since then I've put hundreds of hours into it and it holds a special place in my heart! I've also since played every other entry in the series and enjoyed all of them similarly, but this one was the franchise-defining experience for me!