‘The team wanted to present more than a postcard or a backdrop’: Forza Horizon 6 devs credit road trips and Hot Wheels DLC for upcoming racer

The next stop in the Forza series will be Japan in Forza Horizon 6, but the team at Playground Games has had a long road to get there, one that included, oddly enough, Hot Wheels. In an interview with GamesRadar, Forza Horizon 6 art director Don Arceta dove into how Playground Games prepared to recreate Japan and gave some hints about what players can expect from the biggest, densest game in the series yet.

“Working with Xbox Series X, we worked with that on Horizon 5, and we’ve really grown to understand that technology for Horizon 6,” Arceta explained. He went on to add that, “Technology and console aside, our workflows and the way we built our worlds throughout each iteration, for Forza Horizon 6 [we took] lots of learnings from past games.”

One of the “past games” that influenced Horizon 6 most was (somewhat surprisingly) the Hot Wheels DLC for Horizon 5, as Arceta explained: “We actually developed a new way to create those orange tracks that go around the road to get the best quality and have it be authentic [to Hot Wheels]. We’ve actually leveraged and built off that tech to build elevated roads that weave and web around Tokyo City.”

Tokyo is just one part of the vast map for Horizon 6, which will also span Japan’s mountains and countryside. This is a location players have wanted to see for a long time now, but Playground Games put it off intentionally until its team had the tech and know-how to do it right.

As Arceta explained in an interview with Xbox Wire, “Japan has such a unique culture⁠—from cars, to music, to fashion⁠—that make it perfect for the next Horizon setting. As with any Horizon title, we want to make sure we do the country justice in terms of authentic representation and Horizon open world playability⁠—and now is the right time to realize that fully for players.”

Arceta revisited that topic in his interview with GamesRadar, stating, “This time around, because of the way the games kind of evolved over each iteration, and actually, in the technology that we have grown and developed to actually create these open worlds.

“It’s those two things that now made it the right time for, ‘Hey, we can actually do Japan right’, because we can only do Japan once and we want to do it right. Hence also why we have been working closely with Kyoko [Yamashita] to make sure we’re being authentic and respectful with this location.”

Yamashita served as a cultural consultant for Horizon 6 and is a lifelong motorsports fan herself. She and Arceta and others from the Horizon 6 team travelled through Japan to do research and recreate the atmosphere and culture as authentically as possible.

The result is set to be one of the most expansive, immersive Forza games yet, as Yamashita explained: “The team wanted to present more than a postcard or a backdrop; they wanted a lived-in world. Having a cultural consultant early helps you make a thousand small, respectful decisions: how neighborhoods sound, even what a sign color communicates about a shop. Those small choices add up to credibility and help avoid stereotypes, while also making it a truly immersive experience for players.”