Forza Horizon 6 takes the series even further beyond the track, delivering an open-world driving experience that feels as much about exploration as it does competition. Racing games used to be like fighting games. You’d pick your character (vehicle), stage (track), and set the rules ahead of the showdown on the stripe. But unlike the Forza Motorsport series that preceded it, the Horizon series ejects players from the weight of Motorsport menus and throws players into a sandbox designed after a real-world setting. It’s safe to say the series has evolved.
Forza Horizon 6 is disguised as a racing game, but embraces the exploration aspect of sandbox games, and unleashes players into the world first. You can discover races second (I promise). The Forza Horizon series has gone beyond that of just a ‘racing title,’ and has turned into a cultural lecture, a car enthusiast conversation, and a fun time to mess around with friends instead of just competition. Forza Horizon 6 is not just a great racing game; it’s one of the best games of the year.
Just like Forza Horizon 5, Forza Horizon 6 drops you into a multi-car sequence designed to show you the ropes of the Horizon Festival. You’re first dropping into a stunning flowerbed while driving the Nissan GT-R, and you’re given the mission “Explore Japan.” After racing through lush biomes in the many classes of cars, Forza Horizon 6 teases the player by allowing you to take the cover vehicle, the 2025 Toyota GR GT Prototype, out for a spin. Instead of driving a car, you feel like you’re piloting the HMS Queen Elizabeth. This car has power and is a great reminder of what vehicular beasts you can drive later.
“Forza Horizon 6 is not just a great racing game; it’s one of the best games of the year.”
This solid starting point shows you how to play, but it’s also an excuse to check out the beautiful landscape Playground Games has cultivated. Playground Games put their all into recreating Japan in Forza Horizon 6, and the result is breathtaking. As you drive along the cities, greenery, and beaches of Japan, the towering Mount Fuji is lingering in the background as if to remind the player where they are.
Instead of making a 1:1 recreation of Japan, Playground Games masterfully designed the essence of Japan in a more condensed version of the country. Instead of capturing everything with 100% precision, Playground Games focused on “the feel” of Japan. I was able to drive through the Tokyo City docks, hit the world-famous Shibuya Crossing downtown, and take in the sights at Tokyo Tower, without taking a whole day to do so.
There are landmarks galore to find in Forza Horizon 6’s Japan, and it’s designed to feel as authentic as possible. With each Horizon series release, the development team pulls out all the stops, and Horizon 6 is the biggest launch map yet. Design Director, Torben Ellert, said: “It’s the most visually radically different space we’ve ever built for a Horizon game.” All I know is Playground Games nailed the environment (as they’re known to do). I can’t stop losing hours exploring.
Music has taken a front seat in Forza Horizon 6. The typical Horizon stations return (like Wave and BASS), but new stations have been added. Gacha City Radio, Sub Pop Records, and Horizon Opus are the new additions, and Gacha City plays some serious anime pop-style music to cruise along to. My favourite station in the Horizon series, Horizon XS, has upped its offerings and included tracks from Coheed and Cambria, BABYMETAL, and A Day To Remember, which refreshes the metal offerings while giving music a distinct Japanese identity. Forza Horizon 6 went all in on the culture, and the music ROCKS.
Littered around the landscape are activities I can partake in. The typical Horizon fare is here: you can hit Danger Sign stunt jumps at high speeds to fly thousands of feet in style, Speed Traps demand you hit blurred line vision to earn stars on their challenges, and of course, drifting challenges are back that ask you to stay sideways on the road. Everything you do in Forza Horizon 6 is for progression. Whether you do a small drift around a tight Tokyo City corner or complete a massive race against a towering Robot in a Horizon Rush event, you are making progress.
Once you complete the Horizon Rush events, you earn newly coloured wristbands, almost like the belt-earning ceremony in any martial arts gym. Your wristband is a gaudy festival wristband that looks like it would be a pain to remove, and it screams, “I belong here!” When driving in the steering-wheel view, you can even see your character wearing it. The colour of your wristband determines where you are in the general game progression and also determines what car classes the events you take part in allow you to drive. You start at Class D and move up the ranks until you are driving vehicles that flit around the environment.
“There are landmarks galore to find in Forza Horizon 6’s Japan, and it’s designed to feel as authentic as possible.”
This focus on progression makes Forza Horizon 6 feel more like an open-world Car-PG rather than a racing game, and doing the Discover Japan stories will flesh out the rest of the cast. You can help Larry Chen take photos to nail the cover of Moto Auto magazine (a flipped Auto Moto name), take Day Trips with your friends in the Horizon Festival led by Mei, a local who bestows serious local wisdom and car knowledge on you (she’s also the person who’s putting you up in Japan).
Each activity the game throws at the player is steeped in car knowledge, Japanese cultural history, and the importance of car culture in the Japanese market. The more you play Forza Horizon 6, the more you learn about cars, Japan, and culture without trying. Playground Games treats Forza Horizon 6 like a consensual Trojan Horse history lesson, and I’m here for it.
With all the excellent ways to explore Japan in order, Forza Horizon 6 still lets you hit the track. There are a lot of races scattered throughout the landscape, and Forza Horizon 6 uses its massive map as the tracks for races. When you enter an event, the rest of the map is cut off from the single track, and it feels seamless and plays even better. Each race imposes restrictions on the driver, so no, you cannot take the Enzo Ferrari and race it against a Class C Volkswagen Golf GTI in events.
Instead, events force you to choose the proper vehicle. In a specific SUV Dirt Race, I didn’t have any applicable vehicles for the event, but Forza Horizon 6 noticed it somehow and put a vehicle up for sale with an aftermarket-listed price on the street adjacent to the event. The car was a Range Rover in Class B, almost verbatim what I needed to take on the event. This is by design, and it appears Playground Games has upped the ante when it comes to quality-of-life improvements.
Speaking of, as if answering player prayers, Forza Horizon 6 eliminates the need for an expensive player house to fast travel. If a player has driven a road before, you can highlight that specific spot on the road and fast travel to it; no further intervention is needed. But, by far the best thing they’ve done is remove the pain of running into trees. Any car can mow down most trees in-game now, and it is a breath of fresh air. Often, in Forza Horizon 5, I would have a big skill multiplier, just for a tree to get in the way and ruin everything. Now, cars are moving chainsaws, and trees don’t quell momentum.
Multiplayer has also improved. It’s easier than ever to set up a convoy of friends and hit events together. I was able to jump into a session, and our convoy hit events with hilarity ensuing. During Time Trials, it was clear that attempting to get a better lap time than the rest of the convoy became infectious. Instead of sitting around a campfire and telling stories, you’re driving around a circuit and telling stories, trying to beat each other’s time on the track. Entertainment has evolved alongside Forza Horizon 6.
“The more you play Forza Horizon 6, the more you learn about cars, Japan, and culture without trying.”
Our convoy also hit a few racing events, and it became apparent who the best racer in the group was. His gamertag started with Jingle Jangle (which somehow made it funnier and worse). Instead of competing against one another, it turned into a voice chat cheer session, supporting the group’s second-place racer to defeat the Jingle Jangle menace. Spoiler alert: Jingle Jangle remained on the throne. It’s clear multiplayer has become a standout feature in Forza Horizon 6, and is more approachable than ever before in the Horizon series.
Forza Horizon 6 is my favourite racing game. Playground Games’ reluctance to lose any quality from Horizon to Horizon shows the team means business when it comes to bringing Forza Horizon 6 to the fans. The development team thought of everything, from making multiplayer more streamlined to making character stories more fluid and steeped in car and location culture.
Forza Horizon 6’s Japan is Playground Games’ best sandbox yet, and their focus on getting the details just right gives a payoff that made me antsy to jump into more events and see more of the lush biomes on display in Horizon 6. Playground Games also dove in and fixed things that weren’t broken, towing a thoughtful and cultural soundtrack to Horizon, and fixing a huge flaw with how fast travel works when compared to previous entries (you can just do it now). Forza Horizon 6 drops in a few days, and it has already become my new obsession.
