Forza Horizon 6 is an exceptional game. Playground Games hasn’t reinvented the series so much as taken a scalpel to it, pulling together a greatest hits of previous entries and quietly making almost everything feel sharper, denser and more intentional. This is all while layering new features and event types as deliberate nods to Japan’s vibrant and layered car culture.
It isn’t perfect, and there are still long-standing fan wishes left on the table. But what is here is a downright excellent driving game that tries very hard to be everything for everyone — racer, car collector, screenshot tourist, laid-back vibe-driver — and it just about pulls it off.
Japan At Full Tilt
Where does one start when describing Forza Horizon 6’s fictional Japan? Stunning, for one. It’s easily the most beautiful map the series has ever had. The source material does a lot of the heavy lifting here — Japan offers one of the world’s most incredible natural landscapes sitting in juxtaposition to neon-soaked city skylines. But credit where it’s due, Playground Games has absolutely nailed the translation.
READ MORE: Forza Horizon 6: The Top 5 New And Returning Features
There’s an almost absurd amount of elevation change for one, and the varied biomes change organically as you progress from lowlands and rice fields into thick forests, highlands and finally the snow-dusted alps. This means you gradually feel the landscape changing under your tyres rather than the obvious “now you’re in the mountain region” transitions.
This verticality, paired with the dense roadside detail, means you rarely see much beyond the immediate foreground. On the rare occasions the horizon opens up, it’s usually to the most ridiculously gorgeous view you’ve ever seen.
For example, Mount Fuji — it looms in the distance as a constant, imposing backdrop. You can’t drive up it, but it’s always there on the horizon, anchoring photo mode shots and reminding you where you are.
Throw in cherry blossom-soaked touge runs, temples tucked into hillsides, a Shinkansen looping the map, and a literal rocket launching pad, and it is hard not to stop every five seconds to take another screenshot. I cannot overstate how many times I crashed, being too busy looking at whatever incredible scenery I was driving through.
The map is also stacked with real-world-inspired landmarks — the Kawazu Nanadaru Loop Bridge, Kyoto’s Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, and Hirosaki Castle, to name a few. There are so many small details and hidden gems that you could genuinely lose days just poking around the map and still be finding new spots.
Enter: Tokyo City
And we haven’t even mentioned the crown jewel in the map — Tokyo City. For one, it is a behemoth! Playground Games claims it’s five times larger than any city in any previous Horizon game. But it genuinely feels bigger than that once you’re lost inside it. Distinct districts have different personalities, and endless ribbons of multi-level expressways — modelled on the real C1 loop — criss-cross the skyline.
What it doesn’t quite capture is Tokyo’s truly chaotic, claustrophobic street-level feel. There are some brilliant little alleys, but most roads are wider than they probably should be. It’s an understandable concession to accessibility — this is still a racing game — but I’d have loved more tight cut-throughs to throw a kei car down.
Back to Grassroots Progression (sort of)
Progression has been a mixed bag across Horizon’s previous entries. Forza Horizon 5 typified the wrong end of this scale, awarding you hypercars for simply breathing. Forza Horizon 6 was touted as a return to grass roots — and this sense it delivers, if only sort of.
You arrive as a tourist, crashing on your mate Mei’s sofa. You don’t automatically qualify for the Horizon Festival — instead, you have to prove yourself across a handful of qualifier events. In practice, this is quite straightforward and quick. Plus, you clearly have highly connected friends, because Mei has the festival staff tossing you the keys to his R33 Skyline to test a new festival route. Like that’s a normal thing for unknown strangers to do?
Once qualified, the Festival’s progression is built around wristbands broadly tied to car classes. This means you have to spend some time in slower machinery before graduating to the serious weapons. Don’t get me wrong — you’re still showered in credits, wheelspins and gifted cars (especially if you’ve played the prior entries). But, there’s a difference between owning a cover car and being allowed to field it in festival events — the latter actually takes work.
The pièce de résistance of the progression system is Legend Island — a whole chunk of the map locked until you hit the final wristband. It hosts a brilliant time-attack circuit, making it feel like an earned reward rather than just more map.
In all, the system does afford a sense of meaningful progression. Although, I still wish the game forced you to commit to a single starter car rather than handing over all three at once.
New Ways To Go Fast
Beyond the familiar dirt, cross-country and road races, Forza Horizon 6 layers in a suite of new and expanded event types. Some of these live directly in the open world, like the Time Attack circuits. They are completely frictionless — you simply drive onto the track and start turning laps. They also feature live sector splits and in-world leaderboards tracking both your PBs and your friends’ efforts. Drag Meets are similarly slick, with multiple strips of varying lengths, plus synchronised lights so everyone launches together.
Forza Horizon 6 also introduces the Rush event. Comprising three of the showcase events, these timed obstacle courses are genuinely excellent. Tight, complicated courses that put proper car control front and centre. The only downside is that there are so few of them.
Finally, it wouldn’t be Forza Horizon in Japan without touge battles. There are five of them, loosely based on real-world passes. The roads themselves are sensational — narrow, technical ribbons of tarmac you’ll happily spend hours on, perfecting your drifting. Just don’t expect much in the way of opposition — in solo play the AI appears to essentially let you win. It also doesn’t bother with the drifting. I’d have loved an incorporated drift score system.
Plenty To Do Between Races
There’s also plenty of depth in Forza Horizon 6‘s non-racing content, too. An entire progression system named ‘Discover Japan’ is centred on, well, discovering Japan. It has you earning points by discovering regions, undertaking day trips, collecting cars, and participating in a raft of mini story modes, towards collecting seven stamps.
The highlight was the Moto Auto Zine story — you’re tasked with helping the legend that is Larry Chen in taking photos for the local automag. Also be sure to check out the Tokyo City Food Delivery job — not only is it an excellent way to earn credits, but it is a lot of fun.
Forza Horizon 6 also hides 200 food-themed mascots across the map, each giving you 5,000 credits when you smash into them (that’s a million bucks all up!). They are unique to each of the map’s nine regions.
READ MORE: Every Forza Horizon 6 Mascot By Japanese Region
Outside of the usual stickers, credit bonuses and wheelspins you receive from the ‘Discover Japan’ progression system, you’ll also be awarded barn find rumours. And trust me when I say there’s some absolute JDM gems you’ll want to hunt down.
READ MORE: Forza Horizon 6: Barn Find Guide
A love letter to JDM car culture
Forza Horizon 6 knows exactly why people have been begging for a Japan setting. Nowhere is car culture so tightly woven into daily life — they are a part of how people express themselves every day.
Forza Horizon 6 taps into that first and foremost through its car collection. There’s a genuinely pleasing swathe of kei cars, including the Honda Acty, Honda Beat, Autozam AZ-1, and the Subaru Vivio RX-R. The game even gives these little guys the spotlight via an Eclectic Domestics racing series. Naturally, all the expected JDM royalty is layered on top.
Car culture also bleeds into the world with three dedicated Car Meets, including one at Tokyo’s famous Daikoku parking area. You roll in seamlessly from free roam, park up, and browse everyone’s builds. It’s a great nod to how Japan actually does car culture.
Customisation Goes Wild, But Not Wild Enough
Speaking of Japanese car culture — one area I wish Forza Horizon 6 went even harder is car customisation. The Horizon series has never really tried to go toe-to-toe with Need for Speed in this department, and I wouldn’t expect it to. But Japan felt like the perfect excuse to double down in this department.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s more customisation to play with than ever — a broader spread of Forza aero, new widebody kits, and custom window stickers. This is in addition to a healthy rotation of pre-modified aftermarket cars scattered across the map, including some properly unhinged Forza Edition builds. It is comfortably thebest customisation package the series has ever had. But I still found myself wishing for more — underglow, more aggressive stance options, the sort of silly touches that only JDM can deliver.
Outside of car customation, every player home now doubles as a garage customiser. You can dress your interiors and put your favourite cars on display. You also have access to the Estate — an empty plot of land for total creatrive freedom. If I’m honest, it was too much freedom for me, but I look forward to seeing the community do what it does best.
The Vibe Drive is, well, a Vibe
Forza Horizon games have always been kings of the vibe drive, but Forza Horizon 6 takes it to a new level. Not just because of the incredible map and the sheer variety of sights to explore — that part’s obvious. But because of the little touches you only really notice after a few hours of cruising.
The audio, for one, is superb. Engine sounds are as crisp, visceral, and dynamic as they’ve ever been. But the way the sound interacts with the environment is a big step up. Ray traced audio means tunnels, overpasses and even mountain roads all sound different. You’ll even catch reflections off other cars and passing trains — it is an absurdly good audible treat. And, naturally, it’s backed by another broad, varied and reliably banging soundtrack via Forza Horizon 6’s radio stations.
If you prefer to drive in silence, you’ll notice that the environmental sounds are fantastic as well — the sounds of distant trains, birds chirping by the seaside.
Plus, cockpit view is finally a joy thanks to that 540‑degree steering animation, which makes touge runs in first‑person feel much more authentic and rewarding.
And then there’s auto-drive: Select a spot on the map, hit D-pad down then left, and Anna — your AI assistant — takes over. You’re probably thinking to yourself, is it really a vibe drive if you’re not even driving? Well, enter the cinematic camera — a mode which provides an absolutely beautiful, passive way to soak in Japan’s incredible scenery. Or, in my case, get the ironing done while watching my GR Yaris thread its way up a mountain pass.
Taking The Game On The Road
Forza Horizon 6 also feels fantastic handheld. I spent a lot of time playing on the ROG Xbox Ally X, where it ran wonderfully at 1080p and 30fps. It never really feels like a compromised version of the game either. Tokyo’s glowing streets, detailed car models and sweeping countryside all still look stunning on a smaller screen.
There are very rare framerate hiccups — usually when things get especially busy at high speed — but nothing major enough to pull you out of the experience. Given this is one of the first proper first-party Xbox games released since the handheld launched, you would certainly expect strong optimisation, and Playground Games has delivered.
It also ends up being a great showcase for Xbox’s wider ecosystem approach. Owning it digitally means you can jump between Xbox Series consoles, PC and handheld seamlessly.
Cruising through Tokyo in bed before going to sleep feels very different to playing on a big TV, but the magic of the game translates surprisingly well.
Should you play Forza Horizon 6?
Yes — a big, resounding yes.
Existing fans of the Horizon series will find everything they already love, tightened up and remixed with smarter systems and new ways to race, cruise and collect. And if you’re new to the series, there’s no better place to start than its most beautiful, detailed and downright fun setting yet.
Forza Horizon 6 isn’t perfect, and diehards still have a wishlist. But when you’re blasting through cherry blossoms, threading Tokyo’s expressways or just vibing along a mountain pass while the soundtrack does its thing, it’s very hard to imagine a better place to be behind the virtual wheel.
Quest Daily scores Forza Horizon 6:
9.5/10
Forza Horizon 6 is coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC on May 19th. It’ll also be available through Xbox Game Pass.
Early access to Forza Horizon 6 was supplied to Quest Daily by the publisher.
