to our newsletter to get all news firsthand.

There are few moments in our life when our necessity meets reality with the perfection we had with Japan.

Hello, there. My name is Caio Prates and I’m the Horizon Chase 2 Lead Level Designer at Aquiris. I’m the guy responsible for doing the research and organizing how a real place in the world will be represented in our game, and I must confess that Japan came to me as a gift. 

As you might have read from my colleague Dan Freitas, the World Tour of Horizon Chase 2 is our way to present different landscapes of the world to our community. We are always looking for the right mix of nostalgic and challenging gameplay with pretty touristic views of the countries we selected. For this reason, even before having the confirmation, the whole team and I were very positive that Japan would come to HC2. 

My professional background is in Architecture. I worked as an architect for a good part of my life and Horizon Chase 2 is my first job in the gaming industry. In the past, I’ve worked on a lot of different projects, designing buildings and even a whole city. To me, architecture is how we can intentionally create the relationship between people and space, emotions and landscapes.

This is why Japan is so special to me. It’s a country where you can find the beauty and the calm of old temples and flower fields at the same time you can explore a vibrant and colorful futuristic city like Tokyo. There’s something about this contrast that expresses in the best way the progression we wanted to show in our last World Tour country.

One thing we always try to make clear in our World Tour progression is the hierarchy of difficulty and complexity. For this reason, the first track of a country is considerably easier and simpler than its last, at the same time that Japan as a country is designed to be harder and more complex than the USA - showing why one is the first and the other is the last country of our progression.

We started working in Japan with a different idea of how it would actually be published. We divided it into three sections (south, center, and north), but Lake Mashu was not meant to be the final track. Originally the volcano wouldn’t be active, but the concept team made such compelling work on showing the advantages of it that it wasn’t possible to move forward without using it as “the final challenge”. There’s something about racing inside an active volcano that makes this stage the perfect ending for our adventure.

Because of that, the internal progression of Japan ended up actually as a good way to represent the whole Horizon Chase 2 progression. It starts on nice and calm flower fields, with old temples and the ancient culture of this country is represented. It goes downtown, showing Akihabara and the futuristic Japan we all know from Japanese culture. And it ends by showing nature's contrast between snow and lava. Long story short: it has local culture, big cities, and natural adversities - important pillars of our level design in all our countries.

As the final country of our World Tour progression, we wanted to make sure that Japan was hard. There is one special aspect of this country’s real geography that helps us to shape that into tracks: verticality.

If you pay attention to Japan’s geography, the country is basically a big island with big mountains and volcanoes. This had to be a thing in our level design.

In Horizon Chase 2, we use camera angles and verticality to add or remove challenges in the track. For instance, you can see during Hitachi that there will be some Blue Coins to be collected in the middle of the flower field, even if it’s not exactly clear how the track will be shown to you. That small downhill glimpse of your next path helps the player to understand what’s important about that stage and drives them in the right direction when the moment comes.

On the other hand, Sapporo is a very vertical track, and going uphill is a real challenge with so many strong curves. Finding this balance requires a lot of studies, discussions, and tests - but I would say that we successfully achieved it by seeing the final result.

As I mentioned before, Japan is a unique country because of its contrast. There’s this old Japan with temples, fields, and sunsets that we couldn’t leave out. And there’s also this electric and vibrant crowded Japan with big cities and a colorful night that is a must-have for a nostalgic game like ours. Finding the right balance between these two was a challenging and fun experience.

You may not know, but besides working in the gaming industry and being an architect, I’m also a big tourist. I’ve been to 4 out of the 6 countries of our World Tour and I have plans to visit the two I’m missing. Japan is one of them. And during our creation process, I’ve always liked to compare the real landscapes with those we’re making, consulting people who lived there or people who visited enough to tell us if we achieved the right feeling. 

Like I said in the very beginning, Japan was a gift. It’s a gift because we have in our team a lot of people who love this country, and I say that not only because of the giant robot and Initial D references. Japan has been present in our lives since Horizon Chase Turbo, so there’s a lot of our legacy that we wanted to honor. It was cool to re-visited those places and add our HC2 filter to them.

For this reason, my final recommendation is: play the Japan update and give us your feedback. We put so much hard work into making this game and hearing back from our community is our ultimate reward. This is my first job in the gaming industry, so it’s different from my previous professional experiences. In the real world, I’ve always been able to touch the places I built and see the reaction on people’s faces when they view it. So now that we’re talking about the Horizon Chase world, please share your thoughts with us and help us shape a better game. I can promise you that there’s more content to come and having our community onboard is the main ingredient to make it awesome.

Hello, there. My name is Caio Prates and I’m the Horizon Chase 2 Lead Level Designer at Aquiris. I’m the guy responsible for doing the research and organizing how a real place in the world will be represented in our game, and I must confess that Japan came to me as a gift.

The Making of Japan

Let me tell you a secret: It’s all about colors and landscapes.

Hi, my name is Danilo Freitas and I’m a Concept Artist at Aquiris, working specifically on the Horizon Chase 2 project. To be honest, this is my first experience with the gaming industry, so it was hard for me to find a way to start this article. My main struggle was: “what does a Horizon Chase player want to know about our art direction?” Well, let’s start from the beginning.

The first map from our World Tour is Florida (United States). It seems obvious to state that, but when we started making Florida there was no asset to use. We had to make from the ground every single aspect of the map: the palm trees, the lampposts, the clouds, the grass… everything.

All we had was the track and an empty map around. If you pay attention to our Florida concepts above, you might see that everything around the track is a sketchy version of what would become our first assets. My professional background is in illustration and coloring comic books. When I joined the company and delivered the first colored concepts our Art Director said to me “That’s it! Horizon Chase 2 is all about the colors”.All we had was the track and an empty map around. If you pay attention to our Florida concepts above, you might see that everything around the track is a sketchy version of what would become our first assets. My professional background is in illustration and coloring comic books. When I joined the company and delivered the first colored concepts our Art Director said to me “That’s it! Horizon Chase 2 is all about the colors”.

Our main direction when it comes to giving the Horizon Chase franchise style to our new maps is to keep the colors alive. Our games don’t have the pretension to be realistic, so having vivid colors with this cartoonish style is our way to provide a pleasant experience without creating any expectations about real textures.

Looking back to the Florida production, we have learned a lot from it. It’s not sustainable for us to produce every single asset for every single track. After Florida, we learned how to make a bigger study of each country and how to create assets that can be used on different cities and tracks from the same region.

Our main progression mode is called “World Tour” for a reason. We invite our players to know these countries from our perspective. So this is the main reason why we bring regions that are not always the first choice of a regular tourist. Everyone in Brazil knows Fernando de Noronha, São Paulo, and the Amazon forest, but these are not the first tourism options for foreigners, and these places are rarely represented in games. The same thing applies to San Francisco: when you think about a US city for a racing game, it’s not a city that pops into everyone’s mind. So it’s cool that we can actually bring fresh new stuff for our community at the same time we are keeping it real to the world.

Keeping this tourism aspect in mind, one thing we always try to do when bringing a real city to our game is adding real-life elements. Our goal is to do it in a way that people from those cities would recognize right away and have a sense of representativity. Of course, all additions should add aesthetic value to the game silhouette. The statue of Porto Alegre is a good example of it: very important for the local citizens and a great fit for our overall landscape.

It’s hard to move on from a successful project and start a new one. It’s harder when the new project is actually a sequence of our success. Here we understand how high is the bar set by Horizon Chase Turbo, leading us to several questions about what should be kept and what should be new in another franchise game.

For this reason, Horizon Chase 2 was built as a totally different game. There actually is a 3D map generated by the Level Design team and if we could see a race from a “God” perspective, we would see the cars moving around through the place. This is very different from our experience with Horizon Chase Turbo and this means that our Art team has the duty of adding the assets to this map, forming the landscape we want our players to see.

However, being 3D does not mean we want to be realistic - as I mentioned before. So we kept the still illustrated horizon and we made sure that our storyboard had the perfect mix of 3D assets with 2D illustrations background.

Finally, I would like to share with our community how we approach our game. Maybe by sharing it, you will have a much better experience when playing it again. The secret here is that our main goal as an Art Team is to provide breathtaking landscapes.

When we get a new empty 3D map, we make a long research on the region we will add and we decide how each key point of the track will look like. This is what we call a “storyboard” - a sequence of scenes and views so beautiful and culturally accurate that creates the desire in our players to slow their cars down and just enjoy the view.

Horizon Chase has the nostalgic arcade race design with the visual identity of a tour to a new place. We create unique moments by combining the challenge of a car race with the beauty of a postal card. I hope our community is having as much fun playing the game as we do by making it!

To learn more, visit the Horizon Chase official website, follow @horizonchase on Twitter, @horizon_chase Instagram, and like its Facebook page.


Horizon Chase 2 is Out Now on Apple Arcade. This new game in the series invites you to race around the world featuring online multiplayer for all game modes

The Art of Horizon Chase 2

Porto Alegre, Brazil.  9 of September 2022 - Brazilian developer AQUIRIS is happy to announce that Horizon Chase 2 (trailer | press kit | App Store) is Out Now on Apple Arcade. This new game in the series invites you to race around the world featuring online multiplayer for all game modes, while considerably improving the experience of the first game in every aspect.

Gamers from all ages will enjoy the fast-paced and accessible gameplay supporting online and local multiplayer modes, a super colorful and highly detailed art style and, as it couldn't be different, the thrilling soundtrack by legendary composer Barry Leitch. Additionally to this big news, in gratitude to the community for their support and to ease the entry to more racing fans to our beloved franchise, Horizon Chase Mobile Edition will be permanently dropping the price of the World Tour Pass by one third, to 1,99 USD!

Bring your crew to the race! You can play every game mode in online chases with your friends. Assemble a crew with other players to progress together or compete head-to-head with players around the world. Wherever you are, it's always time to have endless fun in a new era of arcade racing.

Horizon Chase 2 - PLAY NOW!  | Aquiris

Race in 55 tracks distributed in 5 countries around the World in a unique, entirely 3D art style and unlock 10 cars. From the vibrant colors of each landscape to the immersive conditions of different weathers, all enhanced by a thrilling soundtrack made by Top Racer composer Barry Leitch, this game evolves the arcade racing experience to the next level. New horizons will steer you to the beauty of a stunning and inviting visual trip with no return.

When visiting the Garage Shop players will be able to easily customize several parts of their cars, choosing amongst a wide variety of options making them as yours as possible. Collect new cosmetic items, and upgrade your stats throughout the World Tour. Race in different Game Modes and keep on the cycle of getting new visual rewards. Winning was never so worth it.

Horizon Chase 2 was born to be a game in constant evolution, with dynamic evergreen events that will invite you to hone your skills and show off your rides. Major Updates will bring up new rewards, the Playground Mode will offer a brand new challenge every two days, the Tournament Mode defies the players to be the best in collections of several modified races from the World Tour mode. Both modes can be enjoyed alone or in groups of up to four players. Every day is an excellent reason to come back and race!

The Making of Japan

The Making of Japan

The Art of Horizon Chase 2

The Arcade Racing Spirit Evolved

The Latest Articles

The Making of Japan

The Art of Horizon Chase 2

The Arcade Racing Spirit Evolved

Subscribe