Forza Horizon 6 review: a stunning open-world Japanese adventure

Stunning views of Japan, diverse biomes, a massive map with tons of things to discover, a big list of cars, and so much more.

It has been a while since the last Forza Horizon installment. Playground Games spent three years preparing Horizon 5, while Horizon 6 took significantly longer. This time, we are leaving North America and flying across the ocean to Japan, a long-anticipated location in the Horizon series. Forza Horizon 6 is finally here, and I spent the last two weeks playing the game; here is my review.

Disclaimer: Microsoft provided the review copy without any editorial input or approval.

Quick links:

1. Test Rig
2. A new, but familiar game
3. Big, beautiful map
4. Building your cars, garages, and estate
5. Story?
6. Neat small changes
7. Criticism?
8. Conclusion

Test Rig

I played the game on a PC. My computer is not the newest nor the most powerful, but it still has plenty of oomph to handle modern games:

• AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
• 32 GB DDR4 3600 MT/s
• 1TB WD SN850X PCIe Gen 4 SSD

These specs are enough for comfortable gaming at 1440p. At a mix of high and ultra settings, the game runs at a solid 100-120 FPS, which is more than comfortable. The Forza Horizon games have always been well-optimized, and so far, Horizon 6 does not disappoint.

For the first time in the series, Forza Horizon utilizes plenty of ray-tracing technologies (the previous game had them only in vehicle viewing mode). Cranking them up definitely kneecaps performance, but you get a better image in return. Once I set it to Extreme, my FPS dipped far below 60 and settled at 30-40 FPS. Yeah, I overestimated my GPU's capabilities a bit. However, it supports frame-generation tech, and with AMD's FSR 3.1 (FSR 4 is supported on the RX 9000 Series), I managed to up FPS to a more comfortable 60 FPS, with everything cranked to maximum. If you have a modern NVIDIA card, you can also use multi-frame generation.

Note that as of writing this review, Forza Horizon 6 only supports TAA anti-aliasing (or image-sharpening tech from Intel, and or NVIDIA). FXAA and MSAA are not present.

I should mention, though, that I had no optimized drivers (these should arrive on launch day), so I expect performance to be better once AMD has a dedicated driver. Also, the game will get plenty of updates in the coming months to improve performance, fix bugs, and more. If you want to get the best experience, your PC should have one of these drivers:

• NVIDIA: 596.49 or newer
• AMD: 26.5.2 or newer
• Intel: 32.0.101.8801 or newer

Storage is another factor to consider. These days, a 160 GB game is no joke, and if you don't have a spacious SSD, allocating space for Forza Horizon 6 could become a problem.

Here are the official hardware requirements for Forza Horizon 6:

I do not have an Xbox, so I cannot say much about performance on the consoles. However, you can choose between performance and quality mode, with Xbox Series X targeting 4K 30 FPS and Xbox Series S targeting 1440p 30 FPS:

New, but familiar

What I like about Forza Horizon games is that they don’t force you to take a specific route. Yes, you have to move in a general direction to unlock content, but the game is very flexible in how you do it. Almost the entire map is open right away, so do what you like. You can cruise around and discover locations, race, tune cars, do PR stunts, do mini stories, and more. The game does not limit your activities or try to force you into specific directions or events.

That said, one of the changes that Forza Horizon 6 brings is a wristband system. As you progress and increase your level, you get new wristbands that unlock higher-spec events. PR stunts and races become harder as you need faster, higher-class cars. Once you get to the final wristband, the game unlocks a special island for elite players.

You arrive in Japan as a tourist and start your progress as a nobody. I like this change, as the previous entry treated you like a superstar right away, crippling motivation and making the overall narrative a bit cringe (please, amigo, stop calling me a superstar). In Japan, though, you meet two friends who will help you get around the area, learn about events, landmarks, and more. And no, these two do not insert random Japanese words into dialog to sound more "authentic," thanks for that. Random Spanish words in dialogs in Forza Horizon 5 were, honestly, unbearable.

While there is plenty to do and discover in Horizon 6, the game's overall concept is similar to its predecessor. It has the same main event types: road racing, cross-country racing, street racing, PR stunts, and showcase events. The latter appear on the map when you get enough Horizon points to get to the next “progress chapter”. As usual, showcase events are special, spectacular races with unique mechanics that you cannot find anywhere else in the game. In Forza Horizon 4, you were racing a massive bomber and a train; in Forza Horizon 5, you were behind the wheel of a monster truck, and here, you race a massive mecha robot that crushes surroundings, flies around, and stops everything on its way.

Showcase events are fun; they feel like something straight from Fast and Furious. However, they are heavily scripted and mostly serve to entertain and not challenge you (basically, you cannot lose in such events). This is not bad by any means. In fact, these events feel like fun rewards for achieving a new wristband. Forza Horizon 6 has dedicated showcase events for each “wristband,” but I am not going to spoil them all for you. Go discover.

In addition to existing modes, Forza Horizon 6 introduces new racing events:

• Touge: Touge Battles are 1v1 racing events on famous Japanese mountain roads. The objective is simple: drive fast and finish first on Hakone, Mount Haruna, Bandai Azuma, the Norikura Skyline, and Arahiyama Takao Parkway. If you are a fan of Initial D, you know what to do.
• Time Attack: These events blend seamlessly into the map. Just get to the dedicated area and start driving to set the best time possible. As you drive, you will see in-game billboards showing your friends' best times.
• Horizon Rush: These are similar to Showcase events, but not scripted. You get behind the wheel of a preselected car and then show your skills to get three stars.
• Drag Meets: Show up to a drag meet in your purpose-built car (this requires some tuning, and most stock cars will be beaten hard by some riced-out Japanese RWD rust buckets with massive turbos sticking out of their hoods) and get to the finish line first. Pretty simple, just make sure you have the right car.
• Jobs: Pick up food, deliver to customers. RakuRaku Express needs a food delivery driver for their Kei truck.
• Car Meets: Stop at a specific spot and meet other drivers. Check out their cars, liveries, and tunes for inspiration. You can purchase stock cars on the spot and import tunes/liveries from other people at the meet.

Like before, you can play with drivatars, other players in your session, or in a convoy with your friends. Besides, the already existing modes like The Eliminator, Hide and Seek, Playground Games, Rivals, and others are still here, so you have plenty of modes to choose from. I could not try the multiplayer capabilities, as too few people were playing the review build ahead of the release.

Physics-wise, Forza Horizon 6 is similar to its predecessor. This is no racing sim, so do not expect much realism here (a giant flying mecha robot is hardly what I would call "realism"), and cars still tend to slide and oversteer. Still, you can tweak the game's difficulty to make it more challenging. In addition to drivatar difficulty, you can adjust steering difficulty, racing lane, ABS, ESC/TCS, shifting mode, clutch, damage, rewinds, and tyre wear. All these affect the amount of CR rewards you get at the end of each event. The higher the difficulty, the bigger the payout. Additionally, these settings allow you to adjust the game so that everyone can have fun.

If you played Forza Horizon 5 or 4, you will find drivatar behavior very familiar. And yes, these can still exhibit questionable behavior from time to time and make you feel like you are only racing the grid leader and everyone else is just trying to mess with you. On higher levels, though, bots can give you a seriously hard time and push your skill to the limit, requiring precise driving and good tunes.

Big beautiful map

Horizon 6's map is absolutely massive. Set in Japan, it has over 70 areas to discover and hundreds of roads to drive. It does not try to recreate a specific part of Japan and its capital. Instead, developers aimed to recreate the country's overall aesthetics and atmosphere, and they did a great job without making the map too stereotypical. You can find absolutely stunning, picturesque locations and quite gray, unamusing industrial areas.

Like previously, a lot of stuff on the map is destructible. Barriers, trees, fences, small objects, and more. Unlike Forza Horizon 6, it is hard to encounter a non-destructible tree. As long as you have plenty of speed, you can deforest acres of trees without issues. I know this is an odd nitpick, but I am still not sure what I think about the lack of non-destructible trees (I found the latter, but they are very scarce). On one hand, it helps you win in modes like The Eliminator or Hide and Seek, but it could also help your opponents beat you. In Horizon 5, I used non-destructible trees a lot. Driving strategically through the forest allowed me to get away from seekers or score a last-minute overtake in The Eliminator. However, now, you can plow through the forest even in a low-tier car, as long as your speed remains relatively high.

One thing I absolutely love about the map is its diversity. From densely populated Tokyo City and small villages on its outskirts to snowy resorts in the mountains, lakes, and forests, you can find a lot of diverse nature in this game. This reminds me of Forza Horizon 4 with its rich biomes and seasons, which help make the game feel fresh every week. Forza Horizon 5 was a bit disappointing in this regard, as each season was either dry or wet. Horizon 6's map is a massive breath of fresh air, and I often find myself just cruising around and enjoying the view.

Unfortunately, during the preview period, I could only try Spring and Summer (Winter and Autumn will be available once the game launches). However, as I said, the map has plenty of diverse weather, and if you want to touch some ice, you can always go to the mountain resorts up North and break some trees covered in a thick layer of snow. Sadly, Mount Fuji is just a background prop – you cannot drive there. However, you can totally drive over (or through) Japan's iconic snow walls (Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route).

Speaking of cruising around, Forza Horizon 6 introduces a new mechanic called Auto Drive. You set a destination, launch Anna (the virtual assistant), and select Auto Drive. As the name suggests, the car drives itself to the destination while you enjoy the scenery. I do not use this feature often, but I can understand why it is here. The map is massive, and you can easily drive nearly 30 in-game kilometers to your destination. That takes some serious time, especially if you cannot fast-travel to the destination.

The fast travel system is different from previous games. There are no more fast-travel boards to make fast-traveling cheaper. Also, you do not need to buy an estate to unlock fast travel. Teleportation is available right away, with one condition: the area should be discovered. You cannot fast-travel to places you have not been to yet. This encourages you to cruise around, familiarize yourself with the map, and unlock roads.

As you do, you will find plenty of interesting stuff across the map. From the now-traditional XP boards (smash them to increase your XP) to region-specific props (mascots) scattered around the map. Each smashed mascot or board adds to your XP, and you get rewards for hitting them all. Mascots are cute and usually placed in easily accessible spots, while some XP boards will be quite hard to achieve, especially those 5,000 XP ones. I am a completionist, so I won't rest until I have smashed all collectibles and unlocked all roads. While you can ignore boards and mascots, smashing them requires to get 100% progression.

Gas stations are finally here as well. Even though refuelling mechanics are not present, gas stations and shops with parked cars further add to realism and immersion. It's a great addition, especially for those who like to take pictures in the game, and Forza Horizon 6 has pretty powerful photo-taking tools that give plenty of room for creativity.

Also, there are unique aftermarket cars parked in different spots. Pull over to one, and you will be offered to buy a car with upgraded specs at a lower price. This allows you to find interesting builds, unique tunes, and more. Aftermarket cars spawn dynamically, depending on your progression levels, and they also include unique Forza Edition cars. Considering that the game is still very generous with rewards, I do not consider this feature particularly money-saving. To me, it is more about car discovery, as it encourages you to check out various vehicles I would otherwise skip at the Autoshow or Auction House.

There are the so-called Treasure Cars. These vehicles (nine of them) are scattered around the map, and you have to solve a riddle to find their locations. If you played Horizon 4 and 5, you will be familiar with the concept of treasure hunting: get a clue and a picture, drive to the spot, and secure the spoils.

Barn Finds are here as well, 14 cars in total. These are unique or rare, abandoned vehicles that you find by roaming the map (their locations appear as you progress). Just find a bar, watch a cutscene with some interesting info about the car, and wait for Forza Horizon mechanics to restore them for you. If you are impatient, you can speed things up by paying with credits. However, the rarer the car, the longer it takes to restore and the more you need to pay to restore it instantly.

In addition to cars, you can find some fauna roaming around. Birds, cows, and even fish in ponds fill the map, contributing to its overall liveliness. And yes, you can hit cows, but when you do, nothing happens, and the car pushes the creature aside.

Forza Horizon 6's map has very diverse elevation. Mountains, valleys, tall bridges, touges, wide highways, or tiny and narrow back roads between buildings in Tokyo City. Different heights and sizes make the map much more interesting to drive and quite challenging to race in specific conditions. As for the city itself, it is five times larger than Forza Horizon 5's Guanajuato. There is a lot of stuff to do. You can race, do jobs, discover landmarks, or enjoy the ride on narrow or massively wide highways. This neon-filled city is beautiful, and it has plenty of pedestrians in closed-off areas.

There is some criticism about the road width in Forza Horizon games, and I have to say, not without reason. Sometimes, roads indeed feel like you can park three cars across. However, there are plenty of narrower streets and roads, and some get so tight that you can only drive with a small car.

People also sometimes complain that the lack of traffic makes Forza Horizon feel like it is 2020 all over again. In Forza Horizon 6, traffic is much denser. You can always see NPCs driving around, and they sometimes even form small traffic jams or congestions, or jump on you at an intersection. Traffic is also more diverse, with plenty of Japanese cars, Kei trucks, and more.

It is still far from what we get in real life, but keep in mind that it is a racing game where you are supposed to drive at 200 MPH, not sit stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I am glad that Playground Games fixed traffic (you could literally drive for minutes in Forza Horizon 5 without encountering a single NPC on a highway), which made the game feel more alive. At the same time, I feel like increasing the traffic density further would simply become annoying.

Building your cars and garages

A big new feature in Forza Horizon 6 is the ability to customize your garage. When you purchase your first estate, you can pimp it to your heart's content. Place some cool cars to showcase to your friends (you can invite people to see your crib) and litter it with all sorts of props, such as tire stacks, arcade machines, traffic signs, furniture and gadgets, car lifts and tool racks, some vegetation, or even massive dinosaurs.

Garage customization surprised me a lot, as I did not expect to see such a massive list of props and items. Props are not free, but they are not outrageously expensive. And yes, everything you buy in-game (minus Car Pass, car packs, DLCs, and the Treasure Map) does not require any in-app purchases. All items could only be purchased with in-game credits. Placing stuff in your garage reminds me of world-building mechanics in Fallout 4, but less annoying and easier to figure out.

Unfortunately, I did not have too much time to mess around with garage customization, since I had to play the game to write this review. Still, I can definitely see myself spending dozens of hours customizing. Making the game more personal goes beyond just interior design. The map has a dedicated plot of land for you to build your estate and invite friends. This is a fantastic feature to make the game more personal, replayable, and socially engaging. Just like your garages, you can customize your plot of land and build all sorts of stuff on it. A high-story building? Why not? A racing track? Sure. A pack of dinos roaming around and munching on some trees? Of course.

The land for building is very big, and I can already see creative people doing wild stuff in there. You can also share your creations and import other people's stuff if you feel like your creative juices are not flowing. My only nitpick so far is that the estate is not a seamless mode. It has a cutscene when you enter or leave it so that the game can load everything.

Character customization is also present in a mostly unchanged form. You can select overall appearance (I have to say, these faces look quite silly), hairstyle, hair color, clothing, prosthetics, pronouns, and your name/nickname. Taras is still missing in the list (come on, guys!), so I picked "Your Majesty." Now, every time I launch the game, I hear, "Welcome back, Your Majesty."

The game offers about 550 cars from the get-go. Most of them are available for in-game credits in the shop. You are free to purchase them whenever you want, as long as you have the right amount of credits. However, some cars are locked behind progression (complete certain events or tasks in the Collection Journal) or paid DLC/Car Pass. Since the game is focused on Japan and its rich car culture, there are quite a few JDM cars to purchase at the Autoshow. In the first car pack DLC, you can get your hands on some seriously unhinged builds of iconic Japanese cars with crazy body kits and liveries.

Car body customization has never been rich in Forza Horizon. While you still cannot rice out your car like in the days of Need for Speed Carbon, Horizon 6 has many more visual parts for you to try. There are more bumpers, side skirts, spoilers, and hoods to install (licensed from real manufacturers), plus certain cars support third-party bodykits. These are no longer limited to just one generic spoiler or bumper. It is also worth mentioning that you can now buy separate rims for front and rear wheels.

Visual customization is similar to previous Forza Horizon games, with one massive exception: window stickers. You can finally put stickers on windows. And since the in-game vinyl editor allows incredibly detailed and complex creations, you will see a lot of insane art submitted for each car. Personally, I am not a big fan of super-customized cars (I prefer them in their stock form), but I like that the game has something for everyone, whether you are a fan of the original Fast and Furious style or like them stock and unmodified. I usually play Forza with three friends in convoy, and one of them enjoys creating custom liveries. I am sure he will have a blast playing with the updated livery editor and the ability to plaster stickers all over each window.

Story?

There is basically none. Horizon 6's progression is a Collection Journal split by two main sections: Horizon Festival and Discover Japan. The first one tracks your progress in various activities. Road racing, cross-country, The Eliminator, Rivals, and more. Completing each task (these were previously called accolades) earns you something: a little bit of CRs, a new horn for your car, a quick chat phrase, or a new car. There is a lot to do, but you have to entertain yourself and pick what you want to do next. Speaking of picking what to do next, Anna, the game's built-in assistant, can help you with that by suggesting the next event every time you complete one. I prefer doing things on my own, so I disabled this feature (thank you for making it optional, PG). By the way, Anna is no longer a mapping requirement, and you can bind its default controller button to something else.

As for Discover Japan, this is your travel diary where you can see all the locations you have visited, all the landmarks, all the photos, and more. Discover Japan encourages, well, discovering Japan (hard-hitting, I know), and it is a nice thing to do when you want to have some rest from racing. Discover Japan also has all sorts of tasks, including taking photos of iconic landmarks, and completing them will earn you credits and other rewards. This part of the "story" has its own separate progress bar, and you are free to choose your progression path, be it racing or discovering. Forza Horizon 6 does not force you into specific tasks. However, some content, such as barn finds, unlocks only as you progress through. Finally, there are mini-stories across the map, each containing several chapters with specific goals and rewards.

Seasonal playlists are not going anywhere. You still get a list of limited-time events for each season with exclusive rewards. As such, you have two "stories" to play: the main Collection Journal and weekly playlists with various activities and exclusive rewards. Speaking of exclusive rewards, you should finally be able to claim previously missed cars from the playlist. This has been a long-standing community, and Playground Games is finally delivering it.

Neat small details, music, and more

Besides the new setting, Forza Horizon 6 packs plenty of minor, delightful improvements. Some of them do nothing but improve realism and make you think, "huh, that's cute." For example, when you drive to colder regions of the map, say high in the mountains, you can see exhaust vapor coming out of the car's pipes. When brakes are cold, you hear them squeaking (modern car quality, amirite?). EVs now have regen physics, and the driver performs a hand-over-hand gesture when turning the wheel. Before each race starts, race officials examine each participant's car, and you can also see a broadcaster talking into a camera, and pretty large crowds watching you drive.

You do not pay much attention to these details, but when you do, you realize that developers put more effort into making the game more detailed and realistic, which is always nice.

Other neat changes that I noticed include notably faster loading times (this depends on hardware, I have to say, and I strongly do not recommend installing the game on a hard drive). Also, Playground Games has finally removed the nonsensical car delivery confirmation prompt when you change cars and fixed annoying texture popping from Forza Horizon 5 with distracting level-of-detail snapping very close to the camera. There are also new accessibility features, such as High Contrast Mode, the previously mentioned Auto Drive, Proximity Radar, and sign language support (ASL and BSL). As for Settings, most graphical settings no longer require restarting the game.

Music has always been a big part of Forza Horizon games, and Horizon 6 does not disappoint here. There are nine radio stations with the highest number of songs from different artists and genres. Yes, there is plenty of J-pop, but no Eurobeat, which I think is straight-up criminal. You can find the complete soundtrack list here. By the way, there are Japanese radio hosts with subtitles, which only adds to the immersion even more.

Some criticism?

Overall, Forza Horizon 6 feels like a solid improvement over the previous entries. However, it is not 100% perfect. Sound design was never the strongest suit of modern Horizon games, and the sixth installment is not that different. Given the car-centric nature, I expected developers to put more effort into car sounds. I long for a Horizon game with audio quality akin to Need for Speed Most Wanted from 2012, with its visceral car sounds. In Horizon 6, cars still sound a little muted, and crash sounds feel like you're punching a tree, not wrecking a two-ton metal vehicle.

I am also not a fan of the game showering you with cars and credits. Just a couple of hours into the game, and you are already a multi-millionaire. And while car prices are now more realistic and reasonable (from rust buckets that cost 10K CR to vintage racers that cost 60M CR), earning them does not take that much effort. I want the game to challenge me to get exciting, expensive cars, and to make achieving them feel special. One way to do the latter is, for example, to place a real-time odometer in the HUD (or in the cockpit) so that I can see how much mileage my car has. You can already do that, but it requires digging into a bunch of menus.

Finally, Forza Horizon 6 still has cars with quite outdated models, which contrast with newer, much higher-fidelity vehicles.

I would say none of that is deal-breaking stuff that makes Forza Horizon 6 hard to recommend. You can clearly see developers spending more time and effort on making the game more realistic (exhaust fumes are probably my favorite bit), so I wish there were more prominent features that make you appreciate your car even more and make getting that car a bit more exciting. And yes, I strongly believe Playground Games should get rid of wheelspins. These simply ruin progression and devalue cars and the process of getting them.

Conclusion

Overall, Forza Horizon 6 turned out great. While the game still follows the "donb't fix what is not broken rule," there are plenty of user-requested changes, improvements, and gameplay mechanic updates. The new map is absolutely stunning, massive, and has tons of things to discover. Playground Games preserved what people love about Forza Horizon and made it better, bigger, and more fun. Yes, you can still find some imperfections and things to nitpick, but at the end of the day, Forza Horizon 6 is a fantastic game, and if you like racing games, you will have plenty of fun. I sunk thousands of hours into previous Forza Horizon games, and Horizon 6 will get the same treatment.

Forza Horizon 6 launches on Xbox Series X|S and PC on May 19, 2026. Buyers of the Premium Edition can start playing four days earlier, on May 15. The game is also coming to PlayStation 5, albeit at a later, still unknown date. You can purchase Forza Horizon 6 in the Microsoft Store and Steam, plus it is available as a day-one Game Pass release.

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Posted Friday 15 May 2026 at 7:19 am AEST (my time).

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