I’m not entirely sure when it happened, but at some point in the last decade, Forza Horizon quietly became Xbox’s best ongoing franchise, eclipsing Halo, Gears of War, and other big names. There hasn’t been a bad Forza Horizon game yet, and you could argue that each new entry has been better than the last.
After playing a few hours of Forza Horizon 6 via a preview build sent over by Xbox, I can confirm that the Japan-set Forza Horizon 6 seems likely to continue this trend.
Started from the bottom
Fans have long wanted Forza Horizon to make the leap to Japan, and later this year, that’s finally happening when Forza Horizon 6 launches on Xbox and PC (and later PS5). But before then, I got to check out the opening two hours of Horizon 6, including a bombastic and wild introduction that I won’t spoil here because Horizon intros are too cool to ruin like that. But if you want to see it, Xbox has posted it below:
However, after that over-the-top intro, Horizon 6 slows down a lot and offers up a more grounded narrative.
You aren’t the all-star hotshot racer from past entries. Instead, this time around, you play as a new character who isn’t even officially part of the Horizon event. Instead—and the preview focused on this—you’ll have to prove yourself and earn entry to the festival while also exploring the large open world of digital Japan. Don’t expect adoring fans or powerful supercars in these early hours. Instead, I spent most of my time in the Horizon 6 preview in a ’90s-era Toyota Celica GT-Four. It ain’t a fancy Ferrari, but it was damn fun to drive.
The real star of Forza Horizon 6, like in past entries, is the map. The open worlds crafted by developer Playground for past Horizon games have all been amazing, filled with incredible detail and loads of streets to speed down. With Japan, Playground has created what might end up being its best setting yet. It’s certainly the best-looking one, at the very least.
While I only had access to a few standard races in the preview, I was able to fully explore the massive open-world map, and it’s gorgeous. Japan has a load of visual variety. Tokyo is the biggest urban city center to appear in a Horizon game, and whipping and drifting through the place was like exploring a dazzling maze of concrete and glass. Elevated highways cut through and around the city, and following those will take you out to the countryside and smaller villages. Keep going, and you’ll find forests and even a large chunk of the digital world covered permanently in snow. I drove up a massive mountain, and looking out over the world from the top of it was breathtaking. And yes, there are cherry blossom trees, and yes, their pink leaves are very pretty to look at while zipping by.
So much to do, so much to see…
As with past Horizon games, Forza Horizon 6 rewards cruising around and exploring. This time, you have different colorful mascot statues to destroy that earn you XP. These replace the fast-travel signs in past games that lowered the cost of using the feature. This time around, fast traveling to locations you’ve visited previously is free. As you would expect, there are also speed traps, drift zones, and other franchise staples dotted around the open world, too.
But I also discovered something new, a time trial event that I didn’t need to enter a menu to activate. I just drove through its trigger point and started setting a time. These types of open-world events offer up a small diversion organically and feel like a nice way to push even those players who are just vibing out to focus up for a moment.
Another new feature I encountered was a car for sale in a parking lot in a small village area of the map. These are randomly spawned-in aftermarket vehicles that you can buy for some credits, and they seem to replace the barn finds of past games. It’s another example of Forza Horizon 6 trying not to shower the player with free cars and celebrity rewards. See a cool car out there? Well, you gotta buy it, buddy, and money might not be as easy to come by as before, considering the preview build I played hints at having to do side jobs, like delivery, to pay for upgrades and new vehicles.
This is all okay with me, though, as my biggest issue with the Horizon games has long been the way they flood your garage with cars and your wallet with credits, robbing you of the classic racing game progression of crappy cars to better cars to great cars. It seems Horizon 6 is trying to rein the franchise in a bit, though its wild opening is a reminder that this is still a Horizon sequel, so expect some exciting shenanigans, too. After playing a few hours of Forza Horizon 6, I’m excited to hop into the full game when it launches on May 19 on Xbox and PC. Well, that’s one of its release dates, anyway….
