Forza Horizon 6 Review

Japan emerged as a popular and speculated destination for the next Forza Horizon game even before Forza Horizon 4 was announced. We’ve had great locales over the years, but nothing really comes close to the majesty of Japan. It’s been a long road getting here, especially since Forza Horizon 5 has had the longest tail for a Horizon game, running for nearly five years in live service. Thankfully the wait is finally over, and Forza Horizon 6 is a game that’s literally about the journey, and not the destination. It has all the hallmarks you’d expect from this series you’ve come to known and live while introducing a larger focus on drifting, touge races, and embracing the weird and wonderful cars of this country. Forza Horizon 6 celebrates Japanese and car culture with respect and reverence to be a top-tier racing game in its own right, and an absolute highlight of the entire series.

Serving as a soft reboot, the game kicks off with you being a simple tourist in Japan as the Horizon Festival comes to town. Your love of cars gets you to participate, and the prologue sets you off on a journey that’s gives you a taste of what’s to come with a sample platter. When it’s all finished, you then begin your adventure by building up a garage full of standard to rare and exotic vehicles. The game then splits itself into two halves. The first is continuing as a tourist where you “Discover Japan” and earn points and progression towards a stamp. It has a series with its own unique events like unsanctioned street races, stories, speed traps, trailblazer events, and barn finds. The second half is the “Horizon Festival” where you are participating in sanctioned races to earn new wristbands signifying your rank in the festival from Rookie to Legend.=

So wristbands are indeed back, and now progression is no longer a free-for-all, and doesn’t make cars or the things you’re doing obsolete from the moment you start the game. Races will have restrictions, and you’ll build and keep a stable of cars from lower tiers for several hours before you obtain anything faster. Having seven tiers of proper structure since the original Forza Horizon game is so welcome, and sorely missing. While the games in-between have been highly accessible, and let you have total freedom, it was too much. The goal of the game is to become a legend of both Japan and the Horizon Festival, and in doing so you’ll be granted access to Legend Island, a place locked off until you get that coveted gold wristband. In order to get there you’ll have to amass a large quantity of points by finishing nearly every race in first, getting three stars on events, and engaging with nearly all activities to get there. While Legend Island is unique, I don’t feel like the place itself warranted being gated. But then again, this game is about the journey and even the drive to the island has some cute moments along the way.

There’s a lot new in the game, one of the first things I discovered was the AI assistant will now auto-drive to locations once you’ve set a GPS point. This is a great way to grab a drink, a snack, another look on your phone while you make your way across Japan. You’ll still have to drive around the map to uncover roads which also leads to revealing new races, events, and collectibles. Interestingly, in Forza Horizon 6 you can now fast travel to any previously explored road, there’s no longer a cost to them – meaning that the collectible boards you smash through are no longer a requirement to reduce the cost to 0 credits. It’s not something I agree with, but if it was a point of friction for some, that is now gone. Car parks are where you can pull off and pull into a spot to look at other players’ cars and hang out or take a break from racing. It’s where you can feel a part of something (especially since Xbox has killed off the Social Clubs feature). Another social engagement is the ad-hoc and impromptu races like drag meets and time attack circuits that happen in-world and doesn’t require any loading or matchmaking. It’s seamless and a natural addition that’s something I didn’t know I needed. Especially after a session trying to endlessly improve lap times, there’s now a cosmetic tire wear visual. Lastly, Horizon Rush is a new event type that occurs in-between Showcase events, and while isn’t as outlandish, offers excitement in a closed course with confetti, fireworks, and smashing through walls.

There’s tons of races to participate in, with all the usual suspects like road, circuit, cross country, and dirt races. Each of which has a specialty for types of vehicles that can participate. The night life in Japan features street races, which aren’t authorized. And a game set in Japan wouldn’t be complete without touge races. While I wish they were as tense and exciting as the races found in the original GRiD, they sadly are not. You’ll find that the single-player races only feature one-on-one races, and there’s only a handful of them to be found. Hopefully more get added post-release, but there is also multiplayer where you can race against others. Seasons return, and will rotate every couple of weeks. During the review period, I got to see the various states this weather will impact Japan. Most notably, whenever it rains or snows up in the alpine, traction is impacted no matter the vehicle or tires equipped.

Forza Horizon 6 features the largest open-world for the series as well as a staggering 671 roads to uncover, and over 550 cars to attain. There’s lots to see and do, but aurally you’ll hear that the audio has received a massive rework, where I easily noticed that for many cars the audio has been re-recorded, or is of a high fidelity. When you enter a tunnel, the reverb is exactly what you’d want it to be and is satisfying to go full throttle every time. Visually, smoke and fog is more dynamic, volumetric, and realistic especially when it comes to low-lying fog – it’s a sight to be hold. Even car interiors now have better lighting, being fully lit in the daytime where prior games had a tough time of offering that.

Another new feature you’ll find simply by driving around is that there are used cars for sale. These aftermarket cars are found on the side of the road with a “sale” banner flapping in the wind. Here you can find cars at a pretty good discount that usually come with mods already on them. I came across a used Toyota Supra that had a turbo that boosted its horsepower to 710hp and was impossible to tame, yet incredibly fun to drive. Alongside the barn finds to discover incredibly rare cars and restore them to new, there are treasure cars. Treasure cars are also rumors, but instead of searching the radius of an area, you now have a picture and vague clue to its location. Find it and the car is yours to clean and store in your garage. The list of cars here are not as rare or exotic, but have a cult status of their own that make them worth owning.

Eight houses are available for purchase, still offering perks like a 5% discount on car purchases, or getting more credits on race winnings. Customization expanded in major ways, the first of which is that garages can now be fully customized. You aren’t picking from templates or simple designs, you can add or remove objects from a huge list. You can make a classic wooden garage or a fancy car palace. Designing the garage of your dreams will cost you, as each item and customizable element will take credits from your wallet to achieve.

There’s now an estate you can purchase, and estates allow you to make the place of your dreams. You can create a race track, an elaborate place to store your cars, or even a massive playground to tool around on. You can save and share these with the world or friends, or simply create and download these as templates to swap out as you please. Estates are an incredible sense of customization and ownership the series hasn’t really leaned into, until now.

For a city as dense as Tokyo, traffic is at times too light. There’s no Shibuya Crossing moment like that scene in Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift. Not seen since Forza Horizon 3 are gas stations, now featuring way more than a single one. These are a great way if you roleplay or just immerse yourself in your surroundings, it really gives this a sense of place for something so simple. Highway driving is intense, and mountain roads are treacherous, Japan offers everything from city to rural driving that feels new yet familiar, and wholly engrossing.

While this series isn’t known for great storytelling or fantastic voice acting, I found the stories chapters and even the overall chatter to be cringe. From the barn finds where the engineer knows every story of every car with no hesitation is good for exposition, but feels out of place as it feels so rehearsed. The way characters interact with one another is so stilted. Again, this is not the strength of the game or series, but because there’s so much of it, it’s hard to ignore.

I played this both on PC and Xbox Series X. On Xbox, I mostly played in Quality mode, which renders the game at 4K without Dynamic Resolution Scaling (DRS) at 30fps. There is also Performance mode which gets you 4K with DRS at 60fps. On PC with maxed settings with ray tracing reflections and GI turned off, I was getting around 70-90fps. For instanced races and when in the garage, the game would jump to around 110fps. It’s a demanding but tremendously gorgeous game that looks more next generation than the last entry for this series.

Visiting Japan through the lens of Forza Horizon and it’s almost circus-like festival is long overdue for this series, but it’s finally here and the perfect place to be. Playground Games really refines each entry with meticulous detail and reverence for the locale they are in, and Japan is soaked in intricacies. From the incredible race variety to the customization of cars and now garages, you can truly make them uniquely yours. There’s something for everyone to enjoy and engage with. Forza Horizon 6 is another masterclass entry in this long-running series where the vibes are immaculate and the races are impeccable.