“What makes the multiplayer group distinct is that they’re not necessarily looking to win,” says Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt, explaining some of the differences between how Forza Motorsport players approach the different modes in the Forza games. “What they want is that perfect race, against people that are like them, that are the same skill level and are as rough or as clean as they are, that speak their same language. People they can socialise with. Leagues help us accomplish exactly what they’re looking for.”

“ When we first announced 24-car multiplayer, a lot of our fans got really excited.

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“ We did look at other games, but I wouldn’t say Leagues was directly influenced by any one game nearly as much as it was by knowing our community.

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“ [W]e have a lot of pro drivers that come into our studio, all the time... [and] they are the fastest racers in our game.

Leagues are a brand new competitive multiplayer feature for Forza Motorsport 6 “But think about what that means to really get that. If you want to race multiplayer you want to race it right now. How many people in your region, time zone, that speak your language, are the same skill as you and race like you that very second? You don’t want to wait around for three hours for the right people to come online. So 24-car multiplayer actually makes it more difficult.“Leagues was our answer.”In Leagues, Turn 10 will break players into Driver Divisions based on their skill and their professionalism. All players will begin at the lowest division but, via a similar mechanism to the Elo rating system used in chess, skilled drivers will quickly move up into the higher divisions. Players will also be filtered by their temperament, ensuring clean drivers are pitted against clean drivers and drivers unafraid of a little contact will be racing against like-minded opponents.“And there’s nothing wrong with hitting cars, right?” grins Greenawalt. “DTM, V8 Supercars, NASCAR, WTCC, these cars rub, right? That’s part of the racing. F1? Not so much. So when people say, ‘I’m a clean racer’ or ‘I’m not a clean racer’ it’s not black or white; it’s usually somewhere in between. And we’re able to do the same thing. We put you in a division based on both your speed and the way that you like to race.”League lobbies will be opened and closed during specific times each day. Greenawalt likens the idea to a train; at regular intervals it stops, opens its doors, and gathers a large number of people together at once. Players will be able to join a League while it’s open and compete against one another in said lobby’s playlist. Points will accumulate on a League’s leaderboard for the duration of the League and players will earn credits based on their final position on said leaderboard when the League has closed down. Turn 10 will be able to time when certain Leagues open and close based on your region’s peak hours and will be able to support existing fan communities (many of which already work closely with the Forza community team) with bespoke Leagues tailored just for them.“We’re a huge gaming studio, so obviously we play Madden, we play FIFA, we play Fallout. I’m really excited about Just Cause 3 and Mad Max; I love Avalanche, they make amazing games. So we draw inspiration from all over the place. But the biggest place we draw inspiration is by studying our players and listening to them.“So we really started doing in-depth studies of the people that were playing our games; Forza Motorsport 5, Forza Horizon 2. We did cross-regional surveys. We were asking, ‘Why do you play these games? Why do you play this? Why do you play that?” And that was inspiration for our designers to come up with features.”Turn 10 is also including a spectator mode in Forza Motorsport 6 multiplayer, which will allow players to watch multiplayer races in real-time, switch between cars and cameras, and activate telemetry data.“But here’s where it gets very exciting for me,” says Greenawalt. “I sit in a very unique spot in the actual studio; my desk is right next to the simulator. And we have a lot of pro drivers that come into our studio, all the time. And this isn’t just about marketing; they come because they love Forza and they’re in the neighbourhood.”“Here’s what I love. We can invite players to special Leagues, so here’s a place where an F1 legend like Fittipaldi, an IndyCar driver, a V8 Supercar driver, they can all race together in a League – and this is the type of racing I want to watch. Seeing these disparate drivers racing together in a Formula Ford, or a BTCC car; that’s really cool racing. The way this system’s going to work is we can greenlight famous streamers to stream those races.”Turn 10 hasn’t set out to change the way players choose to have fun with Forza Motorsport but Greenawalt does hope that, if a player has always had a desire to experiment with multiplayer but is yet to, this updated approach “will give them a nudge.”Forza Motorsport 6 is due for release on September 15. Check out IGN's recent interview with Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt for an in-depth discussion about Forza Motorsport 6's new wet weather and night racing and visit IGN’s wiki guide for a list of confirmed cars and tracks.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can find him on Twitter