Forza Horizon developer Playground Games originally pitched a Project Gotham Racing reboot to Microsoft, before switching gears to its now-iconic racing spin-off series.

Speaking to GQ about the newly revealed Forza Motorsport, studio head Trevor Williams explained that he’d originally met the creators of the core Forza series and pitched a reboot of the long-dormant, much-loved Project Gotham Racing (originally developed by now-defunct studio Bizarre Creations).

Williams says his initial idea was shut down, and he and his team – while still at the restaurant – had to make a last-minute switch to pitching a spin-off in the Forza franchise:

“It was one of those stories where the steak turns to ash in your mouth, and I’m thinking, ‘how do we afford the flights home?’,” Williams said. “After five minutes, [Forza corporate vice president Alan Hartman] was like, ‘what would you do with Forza? Where would you take Forza?’ And we pitched what literally became Horizon, almost on a napkin.”

Project Gotham Racing ran from 2001 until 2007, with the first two games released on the original Xbox and the last two (outside of two mobile spin-offs) released on the Xbox 360. It became a beloved series, promoting stylish street racing over sheer mastery. Sadly PGR was shelved after Activision bought series developer Bizarre Creations and, despite the license staying with Xbox, we’ve never seen another entry. In 2010, Microsoft was said to be looking for a new developer, but one seemingly wasn’t found – potentially because Playground was put to work on something new.

Playground must have pitched a new PGR not long after Bizarre was bought, as the first Forza Horizon game was also released for Xbox 360 in 2011, serving as a more casual, open counterpart to the mainline, simulation-based Forza Motorsport franchise.

Forza Horizon was instantly popular and received praise from critics and players (with IGN calling it amazing), and the franchise has gone from strength to strength since. The fourth instalment received a 9.6/10 from us, while last year’s Forza Horizon 5 was deemed a masterpiece and awarded IGN’s Game of the Year.

In our 10/10 review, we said: “Forza Horizon 5 is the result of a racing studio at the peak of its craft and the best open-world racing game available.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.