Look, driving a vehicle takes a certain amount of perfection.
You learn effective driving skills, then you practice them every day to play it safe.
In a way, that’s what Playground Games of Leamington Spa, England, does with the Forza Horizon racing sim.
Now in its 14th year and sixth game, the studio has been in autopilot for the past few installations, so where in the world is a better location for new life than Japan?
Forza Horizon 6 introduces a handful of new additions in an attempt to keep steering the series forward — mostly in a more social way.
Neon city nights, snowy mountain days
From the sign-filled downtown streets of Tokyo City to the snow-capped Japanese Alps, Forza Horizon 6 presents a condensed take on Japan, packed with iconic landmarks and master-planned race tracks that weave through city streets and mountain paths.
Tokyo City is vast, and it feels almost like it could never be fully explored. The city can look a little flat in some places, even with all settings on my mid-range RTX 5060 Ti and Ryzen 5 3600X configuration cranked to “Ultra.”
Though the night cycle really brings it to life, with signs lighting up and streets taking on a new calm. I am willing to forgive, as Tokyo City feels very much a place you are supposed to be racing through at speed, unless you are slowing down to grab a collectable or snap a photo of a landmark. I will also compliment Tokyo City by saying that it feels like Forza Horizon’s most lively city to date, which it necessarily had to be.
Other cars are not at all hard to come by, especially around Shibuya Crossing and Tokyo Station! Playground Games has also improved human traffic by adding more grandstand areas and putting groups of people here and there in front gardens of estates or outside of the city’s legendary konbinis and cafes.
It’s the Japanese countryside that truly shines. Getting outside the gridlock of Tokyo’s famous C1 loop and instead taking your ride to the ocean’s edge, a bamboo grove, or the mountains feels incredible. The distance and scale of Forza Horizon 6’s countryside is its best feature.
Over the time I’ve spent in-game, I’ve found myself much less of a city folk than I planned to be. I love turning on the new Japanese radio stations and just pumping the horses down some country roads.
The Seasons system from Forza Horizon 5 returns, with Japan featuring a couple of mountainous regions where there is always snow, making snow tires a must. As has been the case with recent games set in Japan — see Assassin’s Creed Shadows — the changing of seasons morphs the world around you.
Fall will see Tokyo’s famous, and famously over-touristed, Meiji Jingu Gaien Ginkgo Avenue go bright gold. Speaking of bright gold, the gold of Kinkaku-ji contrasts beautifully with the bright pink cherry blossoms thrown up by your supercar in spring.
It’s all very well and pretty, yet winter is still the only season that noticeably changes the driving technique, with summer here perhaps offering a mirage of looser turns compared to spring and fall. However, I may totally be imagining that! With that said, I can’t wait to see the ways Playground Games continues to build out this system in the future.
The Racing That’s Touge Come
Let’s start with the biggest racing change: Horizon Festival wristbands are back! And you can slap them on your cars and livery again!
Forza has always been comfortable being a sandbox of Playground Games’ own creation, with little focus on telling a coherent story aside from “a festival full of self-appointed driving legends take over exotic locales to drive, and maybe make a few more legends along the way.” This all culminated in Forza Horizon 5, with a chaotic mix of big “you’re a legend, just drive” energy. It did away with racing for wristbands, and order felt lost. Well, Japan is known for structure, order, Marie Kondo…and the things people in Japan do after they are done being structured and ordered.
I didn’t realize how much of a joy it would be to be the opposite of Drake and actually start from the bottom again as just a “friend” of the festival. Though racing may not have changed all that much, bringing structure and order back to the moments between them feels so satisfying. Safe, but so satisfying.
Forza Horizon 6 maintains the race types — Road Racing, Dirt Racing, and Cross Country — that we’ve all come to love and expect, but it also adds a few new single-player events, as well as some stellar multiplayer ones.
Let’s start with what’s new for single players. There’s a new Horizon Festival event known as the Horizon Rush. It’s a race that takes place on tight obstacle courses and measures success by beating the clock.
Touge Showdown turns the lights down and the vibes up! These dangerous races through the mountains take place at night and capture the magic and mood of Initial D, as well as the strong car culture that has made Japan a capital of street racing.
In terms of what you can do together with others, this is where Forza Horizon 6 really shines! A whole suite of new Horizon Festival events has been directly added to the overworld, which includes Time Attack Circuits, Car Meets, and Drag Meets.
Because the starting points for these events are directly on the shared map, there’s no loading screen or need to add other drivers. Just pull up and compete. The way these new events encourage civil participation scared the heck out of me at first. But as I pulled up to a few of these, took part, honked my horn, and then went on my merry way, I felt social yet anonymous.
Forza Horizon’s Sixth Estate
Continuing Forza Horizon 6’s commitment to excellence in online play, the housing system has been upgraded to include the new Estate mode, which gives players a large country hideaway with an outdoor farm and an indoor garage they can customize and use as a chill spot with friends.
In addition to the new Estate, the seven other houses also feature a two- or four-car garage that you can also customize, though those are only for you. You can even create and share your Estate with others if they want to use your design. Me, though? Once I cleared the rubble from the entrance, I never went back to spruce the place up.
In all honesty, to me, this new addition felt like a continuation of the recent fad among British developers of adding multiplayer hubs that can be customized and configured — see PowerWash Simulator 2.
I honestly didn’t feel like spending the time creating these spaces, so I stripped them down to earn the credits you get for clearing the messes that come with buying. Though I will likely give this minigame more time when I am no longer racing against the clock to finish a review game.
It’s an Aftermarket world after al.l
Helping you round out your abilities to collect all of the cars is the new Aftermarket Cars.
You’ll find these in significant spots across the map, say, like close to a landmark, your houses or a race. These are randomly selected cars offered for test driving and then purchased at a discount. You’ll find an assortment of cars, from Civics to Porches, each waiting to be found by following the clues and visual landmarks.
It’s a truly great system for providing excitement at all times, because you can roll up to the same market spot by your house or by Tokyo Tower and find a different vehicle to add to your collection. It also encourages you to get out and explore Japan some more without having to navigate to a predetermined point on the map like you do with Treasure Cars and Barn Finds.
Finding them has the joy Treasure Cars used to bring, and helps you avoid the perils of the Auction House, and the pain of waiting on results. I commend Playground Games for once again finding a way to bring joy to the “Pokémon-but-for-cars” experience. Finding a rare NSX on a whim and waiting to hear back from your team working to restore it to its former glory is just one of the many chances you’ll get to find some incredibly exciting vehicles.
All for the beauty and wonder of cars
While the Tokyo City of Forza Horizon 6 and its seemingly konbini- and cafe-obsessed citizens may look a little flat, what never ends up doing so in these games is the cars.
Playground Games always ensures that each of the now-over-550 cars available at launch has real-world stats and styling, with just a touch of arcade crunch.
I feel so lucky to have a mid-range Ryzen 5 3600x and RTX 5060Ti configuration under the hood that gives me 60 to 90 FPS on “Ultra” settings because Playground Games just keeps making these cars and courses all the more pretty.
Playground Games is an expert at crafting an experience that runs and performs exactly the way it should. And while they’ve come to play it safe with things in terms of the actual Horizon Festival, their technical performance continues to develop and shine…like a well-waxed show car.
This is their most significant sandbox to date, and yet they still have found every way to fill it with both new and returning assets. Consider me satisfied and shocked that everything still manages to run so smoothly.
The fact that shared social events now happen smoothly on shared overworlds is nothing short of incredible game design.
In terms of performance, I really wish Microsoft would dial back the “every platform is an Xbox” thing.
I know that it’s been a big selling feature of this game that your save file travels across Windows devices, and that’s fine, but please tie it to the PC app. Having my game tied to both Steam and Xbox on PC meant I had a few occasions when the two launchers caused friction, or when Xbox would magically fail to sign in. It just feels unnecessary.
Verdict
In Japan, Playground Games brings new life to Forza Horizon 6.
I commend them and bestow upon them the title of “Great Franchise Driver.” After 14 years and six games, they are keeping their foot on the gas, moving forward, and steering the series in a great direction. Forza Horizon 6 is safe with its racing structure, production style, and ever-growing roster of cars. It feels as familiar as getting behind the wheel of the first car you learned in.
Yet, it also feels like getting behind the wheel of a car you’ve yet to drive — exciting and even magical.
Playground Games gives us an expert new take on the cultural phenomenon that made Japan a racing capital of the world through the fantastic Touge Showdown. Socialization is expertly encouraged through the new overworld Horizon Festival events, as well as the building of your Estate — should you decide to invest the time.
My only real complaint is that while it is vast, Tokyo City and its character models can feel a little flat if you stop to take it all in. But this is a racing sim, you’re meant to go fast. And when you do, Tokyo City comes to life in a way no other Forza Horizon city has.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: PC
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Author: 360 Technology Group
