800,000 people are playing Forza Horizon 5 and it's not even out yet

Nearly a million people are already playing Forza Horizon 5 - and it hasn't even official released yet.

As spotted by VGC, the game's own Hall of Game leaderboard shows over 800,000 players are already playing the game either on PC or Xbox, most of whom had to have purchased the costly £85/$99USD premium edition in order to secure early access.

For those who didn't - or couldn't - splash out for the premium edition, Forza Horizon 5's street date is 9th November, which is this coming Tuesday.

According to our friends over at Digital Foundry, Forza 5 is "an Xbox Series X masterpiece".

"For nearly as long as video games have existed, the racing game has stood as a monument to state-of-the-art technology - an opportunity to dazzle audiences with vividly realized automobiles gliding across virtual highways," John wrote just a couple of days back.

"As this technology evolved so too did the representation of driving - more advanced physics enabled more realistic simulations while more powerful graphics architecture enabled increasingly vivid recreations of the world around you. As new consoles launched, new racing games would inevitably appear to demonstrate why you needed that new machine. From Project Gotham Racing to Forza Motorsport to Forza Horizon, Microsoft has understood this - and with Forza Horizon 5, Playground Games has delivered an exceptional system showcase."