Forza Horizon 3's PC version can be played online without an Xbox Live Gold subscription We're hearing a lot of misinformation out there, so we thought we'd clarify that you do not need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to play Forza Horizon 3 online on PC.

Forza Horizon 3 will release on both Xbox One and PC as it’ll be yet another game to support Microsoft’s Xbox Play Anywhere feature. We were extremely impressed with the game, but we were surprised to see a number of publications reporting misinformation regarding some requirements to play the online portion of the game on PC.

For example, Kotaku’s impressions piece of Forza Horizon 3 suggests you’ll need an active Xbox Live Gold subscription in order to play any of its online features. In the piece, senior reporter Mike Fahey says “Forza Horizon 3 is part of the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, meaning players will be able to play on their PC, switch to Xbox One and pick up where they left off. Or they could just play forever on their PC (though online still requires an active Xbox Live Gold subscription.”

This isn’t true at all as not only does Forza Horizon 3’s product page say “Xbox Live Gold membership (sold separately) required for online multiplayer on Xbox One,” but when we asked a Microsoft representative to clarify, we were told we “won’t need Gold for multiplayer, it’s free.”

Considering PC owners won’t need an active Xbox Live Gold membership in order to participate in Forza Horizon 3’s online features, it seems this would be the platform of choice for the game if you refuse to pay for a subscription. So if you have a PC that’s powerful enough to run Forza Horizon 3, we recommend doing so as you won’t be tied down to as many restrictions as its Xbox One version, such as having the game locked at 30fps.