Introduction: Japan, Cars, and One Very Big Map

Playground Games has been doing this for a while now. Six mainline entries into the Forza Horizon series, each one dropping you into a new corner of the world and essentially saying: here are some roads, here are some cars, go mad. It’s a formula that works, and FH6’s setting of Japan might just be the best argument yet for why it keeps working. This is the biggest Horizon map to date, the most content-rich entry in the series, and by most accounts the one the developers actually wanted to make for a long time. It’s available right now on Xbox Game Pass, and the wait, it turns out, was absolutely worth it.

I’ll be upfront by saying that I’m not a car person, and I’m not really a racing game person either. I played FH4 obsessively because it was set in Scotland and at one point you race a steam train alongside the Top Gear boys, which as someone from the UK felt like it was made specifically for me. FH5 I played a little less, remember a little less, and bounced off slightly sooner. But FH6 pulled me back in and kept me there for 41 hours, which for a game centred on a hobby I know nothing about is, frankly, a minor miracle.

Setting: Neon Lights and Cherry Blossoms

Japan grabs you by the collar from the first moment you’re out in the open world. Cherry blossom petals drift across the screen as you blast through mountain passes, neon-lit city streets glow at night, and little wooden villages tuck themselves into the hillsides. It’s the kind of open world you want to exist in rather than just race through, and I spent an embarrassing amount of early hours doing exactly that, just driving around, going nowhere in particular, taking it all in. Coming from FH5’s endless Mexican desert, this feels like a completely different game in the best possible way.

Figure 1: Cherry blossom petals filling the air as you tear through rural Japan. 
Image Source: https://wccftech.com/review/forza-horizon-6-review-first-love/

My only real gripe is that the city feels slightly sanitised. If you’re committing this hard to a Japanese setting, lean all the way in. The absence of anime billboards is oddly noticeable, and at times it reads a little more like a Western postcard of Tokyo than the real thing. It’s a minor thing in the grand scheme, but when the rest of the world is this lovingly crafted, the inconsistency stands out. That said, there is a full-size Gundam somewhere on this map, which eventually you are able to race in a Forza Horizon event, which is pretty epic.

Figure 2: The Gundam showcase event
Image Source: https://games.gg/forza-horizon-6/guides/forza-horizon-6-chaser-zero-gundam-location/

Gameplay: Wristbands, Barn Finds, and the Joy of Just Driving Around

The racing events themselves are probably the weakest part of the game for someone in my position. They’re functional, they work, and I’m sure people who actually understand what a torque curve is get considerably more out of them than I do. What kept me genuinely hooked was everything around the races, such as hunting down barn finds, ticking off every road on the map, smashing speed cameras, and tracking down hidden mascots scattered across the world. That peripheral content is where FH6 really got its hooks into me, and it’s the part I’ll remember most fondly.

The wristband progression system deserves a mention though, because even as a casual it gave the early game a real sense of momentum. You work your way up through car classes rather than immediately swan-diving into supercars, which sounds restrictive but actually makes the whole thing feel earned. Reaching the gold wristband genuinely felt like an achievement.

The AI opponents are another matter entirely, at higher difficulties they rubberband aggressively and drive through you like you’re made of air, and it was all fun and games until BowieKnife99 showed up and made the whole thing deeply personal.

Customisation: Cars, Handling, and Sounds

I am not a car person. I cannot stress this enough. But even I noticed that everything sounds and feels noticeably better here than in FH5. There’s a satisfying weight to how cars move, the audio has had a clear and obvious overhaul, and little details like tyre squeal and brake sounds make the whole experience feel more alive than it ever has. I imagine if you actually know what you’re listening for, the improvements are even more impressive. For the rest of us, it just sounds and feels great, and that’s enough.

The customisation side of things such as the tuning, the builds, the technical side of making your car go faster in specific ways, is well beyond my expertise, and I won’t pretend otherwise. What I will say is that the garage customisation system, where you can physically decorate and arrange your own in-game garage, is one of the most unexpectedly enjoyable things in the game.

Figure 3: The garage customisation system is a rabbit hole you won’t see coming
Image Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ForzaHorizon/comments/1ry26qk/garages_in_fh6_are_basically_a_whole_new_building/

Soundtrack: BABYMETAL, Linkin Park, and Everything In Between

Forza Horizon games have always had a strong musical identity, and FH6 is no different. You can be blasting through a mountain pass to Linkin Park, cruise through the city to Yellow Magic Orchestra, and then find yourself absolutely blindsided by BABYMETAL kicking in mid-race. It’s an eclectic, chaotic, genuinely brilliant mix that perfectly matches the energy of the world around it.

What makes it work even better this time is the addition of Gacha Radio, a station hosted by a Japanese-language DJ. It’s a small thing, but it does more for the sense of place and immersion than almost anything else in the game. The music isn’t just background noise here, it’s part of the experience, and it’s worth turning up loud.

Accessibility: Leave No Driver Behind

For a game aimed at such a broad audience, FH6 does a genuinely impressive job of making sure as many people as possible can actually play it. There’s a high contrast mode that lets you customise the colours of your car, other cars, the road, and even the surrounding environment, which is particularly useful during night races when the track edges can be tricky to read. There are also colour blindness filters built in, covering the three most common types, and motion blur can be adjusted or turned off entirely, which is handy if you’re prone to motion sickness. Most settings offer a live preview so you can see exactly what you’re changing before committing, which is a small touch that makes a big difference.

Beyond that, there are adjustable game speed options, a rewind feature, a full suite of driving assists, and even an option for the story to progress regardless of your race results, meaning the game never locks you out of content just because you’re not very good at it. Controls are fully remappable, with up to five saved profiles, so an entire household can each have their own setup ready to go. There’s also a proximity radar that shows you where nearby cars are at all times, which makes cockpit view racing significantly more manageable.

However, It’s not a perfect picture. The music has no captions or descriptions, which feels like a missed opportunity for a game with such a celebrated soundtrack, and cutscenes are completely unskippable. But as open world racers go, this is about as welcoming as they come.

Verdict: Scotland Will Always Have My Heart, But Japan Comes Close

Forza Horizon 6 is, for most people, probably the best the series has ever been. It’s a game that clearly had a lot of love poured into it, from the stunning open world to the overhauled audio, the improved progression, and the sheer amount of stuff to do at every turn. You can feel that this is the entry Playground Games had been building towards, and it shows in almost every corner of the experience.

Personally, FH4 still holds a special place, there’s something about racing through the Scottish Highlands with the Top Gear boys that I’ll never quite get over. But FH6 comes closer than anything else in the series to knocking it off the top spot, and for most players it will do exactly that. Whether you’re the kind of person who spends hours fine-tuning a build or the kind of person who just wants to blast down a coastal road with BABYMETAL rattling the speakers, this one is worth your time.

It’s available on Xbox Game Pass right now, and it pulled 41 hours out of someone who still isn’t entirely sure what a gearbox does, which might be the highest praise I can give it.

Rating: 4/5
Time played: 41 hours
Achievements: 52/57 (810/1000g)