Forza Horizon 6 brings back the Horizon Festival to racing game fans nearly five years after the previous installment. It’s by far the longest time between releases in the open world racing franchise, but it was not borne out of any sort of issues; on the contrary, Playground Games has focused until recently on continuous updates for Forza Horizon 5, which received unanimous acclaim and incredible commercial success, even on PlayStation 5 when it launched on Sony’s console.
Initially conceived as a more relaxed, fun-focused spin-off of Turn 10‘s racing simulation series, Forza Motorsport, Forza Horizon grew with each game to become the most popular racing IP on the market and the recipient of numerous awards. Meanwhile, Forza Motorsport suffered the exact opposite trajectory, and nowadays, Turn 10 is believed to be essentially a Forza Horizon support studio.
It won’t be easy to top the already lofty achievements reached by the previous entry, but the development team is certainly trying hard, and the game’s setting is one fans have long yearned to visit.
Release Date, Platforms, Pricing
Following a rumor shared in August 2025, Forza Horizon 6 was revealed during last year’s Tokyo Game Show on September 25, 2025, with a teaser trailer that confirmed the rumored Japanese setting. The first proper gameplay showcase aired during the Xbox Developer Direct on January 22, 2026, when the studio also announced the game’s release date (which had previously leaked through an in-game ad in Forza Horizon 5).
The game launches on PC (Steam and Microsoft Store) and Xbox Series S|X on May 19, 2026, though Premium Edition players get a four-day head start with Early Access beginning May 15. A PlayStation 5 version is confirmed and will be released later in 2026, again as predicted by rumors. No specific date has been set yet.
Forza Horizon 6 is available in three editions:
- Standard Edition: priced at $69.99, it includes the base game.
- Deluxe Edition: priced at $99.99, it features the base game + Car Pass + Welcome Pack
- Premium Edition: priced at $119.99, it provides access to the base game + Car Pass + Welcome Pack + Expansions 1 & 2 + VIP Membership + Time Attack and Italian Passion Car Packs
As with all first-party Xbox games, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers receive the Standard Edition at no additional cost from launch day. All editions include a custom pre-tuned Ferrari J50 as a pre-order bonus.
Add-Ons
- 1990 Honda #19 CRX WTAC
- 1992 Honda #21 Hardrace/JDMYard Civic WTAC
- 2001 Honda #33 BYP Racing Integra WTAC
- 2004 Honda #52 Evasive Motorsports S2000 WTAC
- 1990 Mitsubishi #269 Attacking the Clock Racing Minicab Time Attack
- 1993 Nissan #32 Skyline WTAC ‘Xtreme GTR’
- 2000 Nissan #36 Silvia WTAC
- 1995 Toyota J&J Motorsport Supra WTAC
Lastly, the Premium-only VIP Membership includes 3 exclusive Forza Edition cars (the Dodge Viper GTS ACR Forza Edition is confirmed to be one of them), 2x credits on all race earnings, a weekly Super Wheelspin, an exclusive Tokyo City Player House, a Crown Flair, an emote, and an exclusive car horn.
Genre and Setting
Japan is the franchise’s most requested setting by fans, and Playground Games appears to have taken that responsibility seriously, building what they describe as the largest and most vertically layered map in the series’ history. The open world, which the developers are positive will “blow away fans”, is structured along an altitude axis, with Tokyo City anchoring the south and the Japan Alps dominating the north, and five distinct biomes filling the space between:
- Japan Alps — the highest point on the map, with permanent snow, a functional ski resort complete with working chair lifts, and an interpretation of the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, famous for its towering walls of snow
- Highlands — inspired by Japan’s Venus Line scenic road, featuring rolling hills and large fields of Suzuki grass
- Low Mountains — a transitional biome bridging regions
- Plains — open flatlands
- Coast — home to one of the game’s signature new events
The crown jewel, however, is Tokyo City, which is so massive and complex that Playground Games split the studio into two separate world-building teams: one dedicated solely to the city and the other to the rest of the map. At five times the size of Guanajuato (the largest city in Forza Horizon 5), Tokyo is divided into four districts: quiet suburbs with bike lanes and school roads; a dense downtown defined by tight 90-degree turns and narrow alleyways filled with Horizon Festival branding; and two further zones that together create an urban experience unlike anything the series has previously attempted.
Players can own up to eight garages across the map, each serving as a fast travel point. The Welcome Pack and VIP Membership each grant a free house at launch, while additional properties can be purchased throughout the game.
Unlike previous titles, this time players will start out as tourists and must work their way up to qualify for the Horizon Festival, rising through its ranks as they do so.
Gameplay Features and Mechanics
Forza Horizon 6 launches with over 550 cars, more than Forza Horizon 5’s initial count of just over 500, and introduces a brand new R Class specifically built for track-focused vehicles. So far, 124 cars are confirmed and listed on this page of the official website.
As of late March 2026, Playground Games has been steadily revealing cars, with recent confirmations including the Peel P50 Trolli Edition, Hyundai N Vision 74, Nissan Safari Turbo, Nissan Figaro, Nissan Silvia K’s, 1995 Nissan Gloria Gran Turismo, 1994 Subaru Vivio RX-R, and Pagani Huayra BC Coupe, among others. Some of these are franchise newcomers making their Forza debut, while others are returning favourites from earlier entries. A notable number of returning models have also been rebuilt from scratch, with the BMW M3 E30, Nissan Skyline GT-R R32, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI, and Nissan Silvia Spec-R highlighted as standouts that received significant accuracy improvements over their previous Forza incarnations.
Seasonal Changes
Full seasonal transformations are back, inspired directly by Forza Horizon 4’s beloved system and explicitly designed to go further than Forza Horizon 5’s relatively mild weather tweaks. Japan’s real-world 72 micro-seasons served as the artistic reference for Art Director Don Arceta and his team, who compressed them into the four main seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, which will feature dramatically distinct foliage, weather, soundscapes, and terrain transformations.
Open-World Events: Time Attack, Drag Racing, and Vibe Driving
Design Director Torben Ellert introduced the concept of “vibe driving”. It’s the simple act of cruising Japan’s roads with no goal in mind, and it was a deliberate design pillar during development, with the world structured to naturally reward organic exploration. Built on top of that philosophy are two seamless, always-active event types embedded directly into the open world:
- Time Attack: Players drive onto permanent grassroots circuits scattered across the map, and their laps are tracked automatically, with no menus or loading screens. A dedicated Time Attack circuit exists on Legend Island, the endgame area unlocked by collecting all 7 Festival Wristbands.
- Drag Racing: Three drag strips exist in the open world with synchronized starting grids and traffic lights visible to all nearby players simultaneously, letting anyone pull up and race spontaneously.
- Car Meets: Three fixed locations (the Horizon Festival Site, Okuibuki Parking Lot, and Daikoku) where players gather to share liveries and customisations.
- Touge Battles: Iconic night-time races down Japanese mountain passes.
- Treasure Cars: Vehicles hidden in the open world to be discovered and restored.
Additionally, aftermarket-customized cars are parked throughout the world and can be purchased and driven away on the spot, without ever visiting a garage. As players explore, they can photograph points of interest, with shots stored as stamps in a Collection Journal that also unlocks clues for Barn Finds.
Horizon Rush
The most significant new structured event type is Horizon Rush. These are timed obstacle course races set across three of the game’s most visually spectacular locations:
- Pier Pressure (Tokyo City dockyard) — This race features massive jumps, snaking routes over stacked shipping containers, and obstacles that lift at the last second to let players through.
- Alpine ski resort — This one is set in the snowy mountain region.
- Coastal spaceport — The developers teased that “a rocket may or may not take off” during this event.
Each Rush course is split into distinct sectors so players can identify precisely where they gain or lose time, and they can be played solo, co-op, or in competitive multiplayer. Rush events sit alongside traditional Showcase events as “Milestone” events in the career structure, all of which are bookended by the Invitational event and the Legend Island finale.
The Estate
A major new feature is The Estate, a customizable mountainside property in rural Japan that functions a bit like a sandbox building system. Players can clear the overgrown mountain valley and populate it with items and objects using in-game credits, building anything from a personal mountain hideaway to a private track. The Estate exists permanently in the open world and is visible to other players.
Customization
Customization receives its most significant overhaul in years. Every Forza Aero front splitter is now bespoke, molded to the specific shape of each individual car rather than being a one-size-fits-all part. Rear spoilers also receive separate paintable elements. Forza Edition cars return as the most extreme versions yet, being fitted with custom fabrications that cannot be replicated by manually applying upgrades in the Auto Show.
Tech and Specs
Forza Horizon 6 is built on the in-house engine called ForzaTech (which also powers the new Fable game, due in Autumn 2026). The requirements shared in late March represent a meaningful hardware step up from its predecessor, most notably by making an SSD a hard requirement and doubling the minimum RAM to 16 GB. The PC system requirements span four tiers:
| Specs | Minimum | Recommended | Extreme | Extreme RT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600 | Intel Core i5-12400F / AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | Intel Core i7-12700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7700X | Intel Core i7-12700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7700X |
| GPU | GTX 1650 / RX 6500 XT / Arc A380 | RTX 3060 Ti / RX 6700 XT / Arc A580 | RTX 4070 Ti / RX 7900 XT | RTX 5070 Ti / RX 9070 XT |
| RAM | 16 GB | 16 GB | 24 GB | 32 GB |
| Storage | SSD | SSD | NVMe SSD | NVMe SSD |
| Windows | 10/11 (22H2+) | 10/11 (22H2+) | 10/11 (22H2+) | 10/11 (22H2+) |
| Target | 1080p / 60fps Low | 1440p / 60fps+ High | 4K / 60fps+ Extreme | 4K RT upscaled / 60fps+ |
The game is also confirmed to support the following features on PC:
- HDR and Ultrawide displays
- High Uncapped Frame Rates
- NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation
- AMD FSR 3 and FSR 4
- Intel XeSS 2.1
- Ray Traced Reflections and Global Illumination
- Robust support for controller and racing wheels
- Support for handheld devices like Valve’s Steam Deck and the ASUS ROG Ally
There will be many customizable settings, and, as an improvement over previous releases, Forza Horizon 6 will allow tweaking PC render settings without restarting the game. There are also live previews for many of the graphics settings.
Users may even display real-time video and system memory usage figures and launch a benchmark mode. Lastly, cross-save functionality is confirmed to be supported and will also extend to the PlayStation 5 version coming later this year.
VIA: wccftech.com
