Forza Horizon 6 is set to launch on 19th May 2026, arriving first for Xbox Series X|S, PC and Xbox Game Pass with an eventual PlayStation 5 release coming at a later point this year, Microsoft has announced alongside a deep dive into the gameplay by Playground games during the Developer Direct stream.
Forza Horizon 6 looks to take the familiar arcade racing format of the series to the next level, thanks in no small part to being fully on this generation, when Forza Horizon 5 was a cross-gen release. The game still takes liberties with reality to create a landmark-filled approximation of Japan, which includes Mount Fuji, Tokyo City, and more rural areas, but the team at Playground Games has brought in consultants to ensure that it’s authentic and not just “postcard tourism” – things like picking 78 as the building number for your first home base, which is lucky in Japanese culture.
Once again the Horizon Festival is at the centre of all the racing that you’re taking on. The journey through the game starts as a tourist to Japan, having to first qualify for the Festival, earning wristbands and taking challenges to prove you’re worthy for the next stage and series of events. There’s a new event here with Horizon Rush, tasking you with weaving through obstacle courses to prove your skills. At the end of the road is Legend Island, an exclusive region of the world that only the pinnacle are able to visit.
Seasons will also make a return to Forza Horizon 6, and should be as impactful for the Japanese weather as they were for Forza Horizon 4 and its wildly different British seasons. Cherry blossoms in the spring are going to be delightful to see, and they’ll respond realistically to passing cars. It’s built around a ton of photogrammetric data capture of the world, providing the foundation for the world – within that, Tokyo City is five times larger than any urban city before, featuring multiple distinct and visually different districts, but there’s also a broad countryside too.
The team has overhauled the car roster to be better balanced, with the hundreds of cars that have new Forza body kits, liveries that extend to the wind screen, but there’s also some unique creations to collect. Oh, and there’s also authentic tyre wear. The Forza Horizon 6 cover star is the Toyota Gazoo Racing GR GT. It’ll sound great, thanks to new environmental audio processing, hours of ambient sound capture from different seasons.
The shared open world returns with thematic open car meets, where you can turn up and show off your car, and even then just buy copies of the cars that you see. That then bleeds into driving and racing together.
Online multiplayer, they promise, will be easier to get into than ever, and more extensive with full collaborative multiplayer world building tools that you can dive into.
The game’s accessibility suite is pushing on with features like proximity radar for competitive racing, auto drive for when you just want to kick back, and a customisable high contrast mode to aid visually.
The key thing that we’ll have to wait and see is how much this game feels like a new step for the series. There was criticism for Forza Horizon 5 that is was often very similar to Horizon 4, in terms of the cars on offer, the overarching progression and the feel, despite having leapt across from Britain to Mexico. We do expect Horizon 6 to still be an evolution of the formula instead of a wholesale reinvention, but hopefully there’s some more distinguishing touches.
