Forza Horizon 6 Review – Five Years, 600 Cars, One Question — Did They Nail Japan?

It’s been five years since the previous Forza Horizon title. This has been the longest stretch between any two titles in the Horizon franchise, with Horizon 5 having a gap of three years from the regular two-year schedule – mostly as a result of COVID delays. As a result, the hype for this latest entry, Forza Horizon 6, has been immense, especially when the news broke of its location set in Japan, the most popular suggested destination of choice from fans the world over. It’s finally here – Tokyo.

While I didn’t immediately take to the Forza Horizon series from the start, still clinging onto hopes of a turnaround in the Need for Speed franchise and had primarily switched to simulation racers in the 2010s as a result. In 2021, however, I was a lucky winner of a competition to attend the local launch of the latest game in the franchise, Forza Horizon 5. After winning the day’s real-world slalom challenge and receiving an Xbox and a copy of the game for my efforts, I quickly fell in love with the franchise. Racking up close to 800 hours before putting away the racing gloves. Needless to say, I was one of the many eagerly anticipating the latest game, more than expectant of the hype surrounding it.

First Impressions: Arriving in Forza Horizon 6’s Japan

As with most titles in any franchise, there is always a promise of bigger, better, richer and every other adjective generally thrown at a new release. Thankfully, almost off the bat, you have a sense of this. As is the custom, you’re thrown into a race to the Horizon Festival by the organisers, which takes you on a journey across the various terrains and cars to one of the festival sites. From the Sotoyama Ski Resort, through the Takashiro region, past the Nachi Falls and down to the first festival site, you get a sense of what’s to come. This is the biggest Horizon map to date, with Tokyo City also being the largest cityscape in the franchise.

As I did previously, I immediately set about some exploration, choosing to get a taste for the roads and a few cars before heading into any races or missions of progression. The Horizon series caters towards a vast variety of racing enthusiasts, from those looking to explore, those focusing on fine-tuning, car meets, after-market customisations and everything else in between. And your style plays heavily into the overall experience.

The Map: Forza Horizon 6’s Biggest Open World Yet

One of the earliest achievements many look to unlock is the 100% completion, discovering all the roads on the map. FH6 continues this objective along with the collection of experience boards scattered throughout the map. The latest release includes a new aspect in terms of these collections, adding breakable mascots, which have been designed per region.

The mascots are all available immediately in each of the sections explored. However, for those completionists looking to discover all the roads and boards prior to getting down to any serious racing, I have some bad news for you. There’s a portion of the game that’s locked away behind a progression wall. As you make progress and achieve higher experience levels within the game, you unlock wristbands, which open up new racing events, side achievements and more. However, to unlock the last part of the map, Legend Island, players will have to reach the top tier level, the gold wristband, before being able to travel across the bridge to get there. Although annoyed at first, not being able to simply drive across the entire map, the urge to complete the exploration left me going back to complete the necessary races to level up. Job done, right? Unfortunately not. As many Horizon fans will tell you, finding every inch of road on the map can sometimes be a challenge, with small parts still missing from your exploration, even after spending a few minutes to hours in some cases, attempting to find that last uncharted road. After another day of progress, I finally found these last roads and put that part of the game to bed. It’s all part of the journey.

Graphics and Visuals: A Living, Breathing Japan

While traversing the large map, there’s a lot to take in. The scenery is amazing, as you drive from densely populated suburban areas with sky-rise buildings and houses, to the wide-open roads in the rural areas, all the way up to the icy slopes on the mountains, through the Tateyama Kurobe alpine pass. The details and aesthetics, from the cars to the grassy patches, there are plenty of details to enjoy. Even stopping off at the filling stations and convenience stores along the way, there’s much more detail in every aspect of the game. For most of the houses, stores and other buildings with open windows, you actually get to peep inside, see shelves stocked with products, furniture in homes and more. People walk around and mingle, take selfies, and, although I can’t confirm it, appear to wave as you drive past at serious speed.

Gameplay: More Than Just an Arcade Racer

Despite being a racing game, there weren’t many dedicated racing tracks in the FH5 world. That has changed in FH6, with four circuits available to race on without needing to enter any specific competition. Here, you can just rock up the start line and race the clock around the tracks. Each of these tracks, including the drag strips that feature a starting grid complete with countdown lights, have live timing screens at the end of the lap. Players can see their times being registered and where on the leaderboard their time has registered. Although limited to a few thousand other players during the review period, I managed to clock a couple of top 10 times, which stayed for a few days – it was good while it lasted.

The entire world just feels more alive. Which means taking all those shortcuts and crashing into breakable fences feel more real. I can’t help but feel something when I cut across a field to save some time, only to realise you’re destroying someone’s rice patch in the field. Maybe that’s just me. Nevertheless, this makes everything feel more realistic, despite being labelled as an arcade racer. It also doesn’t feel over-the-top with its anime influences or overabundance of cherry blossoms. Instead, it feels genuine, but still has room for the absurd when doing certain events.

The game was developed by Playground Games with assistance from Turn 10 Studios, with the latter having developed the ForzaTech gaming engine, which is still in use in the Horizon and Motorsport series. Further development on the gaming engine focused on polishing the mechanics and aesthetics of the cars in the game, which can be felt. Although the game may still be labelled as an arcade racer, there are plenty of simulation elements, especially from a realism point of view for the handling of the cars, their sounds and beautifully crafted designs. You do still experience the arcade side of the racer, flying through the sky when hitting those side quests on Danger Signs, but there’s nothing better than hitting an oversteer into a slide with the car’s tail out, then being able to catch it with counter steering to get back its balance.

FH6 is somewhat of a continuation of FH5. It brings back all we loved with the previous title and adds more to enjoy. With over 600 cars on Day 1 and a larger map with more to explore, more races and more collectables, you can easily get lost in the game for many hours, even before taking up your putting on your racing gloves and get more competitive. In addition to all these elements, there’s still online racing and other challenges to take up. And for those who need a break from all the driving, you can now enjoy some world-building as well. Players can still enjoy creating their own races and events in the Creative Hub, which has expanded its options with the estate editor. FH6 not only allows players to buy properties, as it did previously, you can also now customise your garages and the outside too. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it adds a different dynamic, allowing users to share and draw inspiration from others to create unique estates.

Missions, Stories and Side Content

There are several stories scattered throughout Japan. Although some of it was fun in FH5, it became one of the biggest memes from the game with Papa Fernando and his VW Beetle. Having learned lessons from this somewhat awkward storytelling, we get a mix of different stories and types of activities. From Day Trips, which is an exploration-type story, to Yuji’s Auto, where he takes you on a journey of car customisations. However, one of the more unique additions is the Tokyo City Food Delivery, which isn’t so much a story but more ranking up as a delivery driver in Tokyo City. As with most of the previous games, you’re rewarded for all your exploring and taking photos of your car collection and sites visited.

Forza Horizon 6: The Criticisms

There are a few gripes I have about the game. These aren’t serious at all, but just some annoyances while playing. My biggest of these is the podium celebrations, which are similar to those found on FH5. Playground Games paid little attention to this aspect, where you’re greeted with the same podium shots after every win, no matter the time of day or weather conditions. Secondly, you can’t skip any of the dialogue. This is especially frustrating when you want to repeat a challenge to 3-star it for completion and then having to listen to the same speech over again.

Online, Seasons and What’s Still to Come

With a few gaming aspects to be unlocked once it goes live on 19 May 2026, such as the Seasons and its weekly challenges, there’s still a lot more to enjoy. Interestingly, while still in pre-launch, I didn’t find too many hold-ups with online racing, where there was always someone available to participate. However, Horizon Stunt Party was a bit more sparse, where I often had to complete challenges on my own to get the achievement.

Forza Horizon 6 Review Verdict

In the end, Forza Horizon 6 in Japan is an amazing continuation of the Forza Horizon franchise. Everything is bigger and better, from the graphics and audio to the world itself being more alive. It doesn’t break the mould in terms of the standard game dynamics, but has improved on each element of the game to enhance your experience and enjoyment of driving along the many roads available to players.

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