There is new information about Forza Horizon 6 and MeinMMO editor Dariusz is totally thrilled, as the developers have shown exactly the right thing.
At the Xbox Developer Direct on January 22, 2026, Playground Games talked for nearly 12 minutes about Forza Horizon 6 and provided the first glimpses of the gameplay and the game world of the racing game. We also learned that Forza Horizon 6 will be released on May 19, 2026, and will cost around 70 euros in the standard edition.
Since it became known that the next installment in the series will take place in Japan, I’ve been looking forward to the game. I found the last installments… okay. Great Britain was cool and had pretty spots, but I just have no attachment to that setting. Mexico looked incredibly good and had some really great corners, but it wasn’t the kind of map I find cool in games like Forza Horizon.
I find Japan and the car culture of the island nation extremely interesting, and what the developers showed now fits my taste perfectly.
Great setting, but the map is crucial
Before the showcase, there was exactly one thing that I feared could “ruin” the Japanese setting for me: the way the map is structured.
- If there is only one big city, I would miss mountain roads that I can drift down.
- If there is too much “nature” and it feels like I’m mostly driving through nothing, I would miss the Japanese metropolises with colorful neon lights.
I hoped to see both the Japanese nature that looks truly incredible in the different seasons, as well as being able to race through colorful neon streets like in Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift.
And precisely this hope has been fulfilled by the showcase and at the same time relieved my concerns.
The developers report that Forza Horizon 6 will have by far the largest city that has ever existed in the series. This city will consist of various districts: We will see, for example, the downtown area with wide streets and billboards, a chic suburb, and an industrial area. But the mountain roads and seasons apparently won’t be neglected either.
I simply love to see someone drifting around the corner in a (Nissan) Skyline.
To be honest, it’s not that important to me that everything is as realistic as possible. That could bother people who engage with Japan, its culture, and the natural features of the country much more intensely than I do. I’m simpler. A Porsche swirls cherry blossoms that have fallen from the trees and landed on the road, and I think it’s great. It just looks amazing.
I got the impression that this was also a fundamental vision of the developers: It should look great and remind of Japan: They talked about the different seasons being celebrated and more prominently featured than in Forza Horizon 5, for instance.
More room for creativity and the presentation of my cars
I’m a big fan of being able to create my own maps or racetracks in games or setting up my own four walls. Forza Horizon 6 aims to expand on this a bit. This is probably irrelevant for the gameplay loop of most players, but for me, these were great announcements that I didn’t expect.
- The developers said, for instance, that you will be able to start building your own tracks anywhere on the map in the future.
- We will also be able to set up and decorate a garage and build a huge estate. The result can then be shown to friends.
- If you don’t feel like meeting in any garages, there will also be car meets in Forza Horizon 6 – these, however, will be in the open world, without loading screens, and every player can simply drive there and participate.
I’m the kind of player who even builds huge bases in survival games and ignores the boss fights, just to proudly show what I’ve created in the end. I do the same in games like Forza Horizon, but with racetracks or paint jobs for my cars. More options to showcase my work are exactly my thing. If the Japanese car culture is captured properly now, I might never need another racing game again.
Forza Horizon 6 will not only be released on PC and Xbox, but will also be available on PS5 with a slight delay. The predecessor, Forza Horizon 5, has also been playable on PlayStation since April 2025 and was very well received there: Sony is betting on an exclusive racing game on PS5, but currently, a racing game from Xbox dominates the console
