The map. The biggest Forza Horizon map to date, but also and most importantly one of the most fun to drive on. Aside the usual nitpicks I have about the road (see below), it is varied not just in terms of backdrop, like 5 was, but also and genuinely in terms of driving environments. Highway networks, urban centers, touge, all with real elevation changes.

The highway. No, it's not a 1:1 recreation of the Shuto Expressway, but it doesn't have to be one in this game. It feels believably Japanese - it isn't a long straight into nothing that divides the map north and south, but it actually properly circles the map and is elevated; you'll have to navigate it and find your entry and exit points.

The soundtrack. Any OST that combines Marshall Jefferson, BABYMETAL, Linkin Park, and Yellow Magic Orchestra in the same game deserves praise. If you belong to the vocal minority of whiners who are complaining that there isn't any Eurobeat, I implore you to listen to literally anything else. There's Gacha Radio and its un-subtitled Japanese-language DJ right there. That, alone, does more for immersion than FH5 ever did, with its barely curated soundtrack and complete lack of Spanish-language DJ.

The progression system is good. It isn't a full whole-hog return to FH1 but five games away from the series origins, it's a good thing they adopted the system that they did. You do need to progress through the wristbands to unlock more races, and many of these races are (thank GOD, FINALLY!) both car type and PI class restricted. Gone are the days of getting away with completing everything with the samey S1 tune. You'll even have to drive kei cars around a small drift circuit. Cherry on top of the cake: Circuits are no longer all 3-lap races.

The garage customization and Estate system. Genuinely the most unexpected thing to come out of FH6. I didn't know how much I wanted customizable garages with the EventLab prop placement system until I saw HokiHoshi demonstrate it. As soon as I got my hands on the game, I ended up sinking a good 3 hours just into garage customizing. If it's not to your taste, you can make use of the very best part of this feature: just download someone else's garage creation and enjoy it that way. Bravo, genius idea.

The proximity radar. THANK YOU. I've been ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and whining about it since FH4. Now racing online while in cockpit view will finally be more tolerable.

The general car feel and handling (on tarmac). It's not a huge improvement over FH5 (which itself made strides over 4, where the competitive flavor demanded AWD), but cars feel a little weightier and more satisfying to drive, especially in lower classes. It does not seem like you have magic front grip, as you did in 5, and applying standard racing techniques (braking, cornering, accelerating on exit) seems to be better rewarded than the usual fare of late-braking and powering through. I believe this is most evident in time attack on the circuits, where racecraft matters the most.

Car audio. The audio system has seen some improvements, and many cars that have been here for a long time now sound better, clearer, more true to life. My beloved Impreza 22B sounds better than it ever did, and the same is true of many other cars.


AI opponents are a mixed bag, yet again. The difficulty is hard to describe in general. Their behavior has changed from FH5, as far as I can tell, but it's still not all there. I have noted that they make an effort to no longer just race in a single file (at least in official events, I haven't tried custom races yet), and it is a lot more likely to watch them bunch up and go 2-wide, 3-wide, or more. However, they remain pretty brain-dead; they still brake-check you, they are still easy to brake-check back. At least AI cars no longer feel impossible to push out of the way, not that you need to do it as often as before, as they'll often just move aside and let you pass. It's funny, this reminds me a lot of track behavior in FM 2023.

The general car feel and handling (off-road). As long as you're on dirt or gravel or sand, it's fine (they have learned their lessons from FH5 Rally Adventure), but full Cross-Country racing remains the worst part of Forza Horizon, and FH6 continues the sorry tradition. I just do not care for "track" design around jumps and hops and props, it's something to suffer through more than enjoy.

Car models. I'll preface this by saying that I expected it to be a thing, because this is Forza, why waste perfectly usable models. But the presence of Acura-branded cars that should have been Hondas, and the large number of left-hand-drive Japanese cars (some with speedos in MPH - looking at you RX-7 GSL-SE!) are genuinely immersion-breaking in what should have been the homeland for these vehicles. That is a bigger problem to me than the large number of American/European cars on the roster, which are completely fine to have and just as popular to Japanese car nuts as they are in their home countries.


The usual Forza-isms that have been here forever.
Missing a checkpoint is still as harshly punished as it ever was when there is no reason to ever do things this way.
There are still too many people speaking with British accents (really makes you feel like they haven't moved from FH3/FH4 and the Horizon Festival is really just a UK outfit...)
ANNA is still an annoying machine, many roads are still too wide (although not everywhere - was pleasantly surprised to find out that many places, especially around Tokyo, require some finesse to drive through, but it's still inconsistent)...
It's still impossible to complete CC races with damage on.
There's still no point turning on damage and tire wear because there still isn't anything like pitting or repairing your car.
There's still no "simulation-y" way to drive each vehicle, I still have to manually set the gearbox/ABS/TC/etc. to what it should be if I want an authentic(-ish) experience.
Difficulty w/ AI opponents is still ganked, AI still cheats/gets unfair advantages to make up for the fact they naturally suck.

Personally, I can bear with these faults, but if you're thirsty for something truly new, look elsewhere, this isn't it.


...It's Forza Horizon 6. It's what I hoped for and more, and as always, it is best enjoyed with friends. They encourage you more than ever to drive with other people - the LINK system, the absolute ease of jumping into a drag race or a time attack with friends, and so on, are all thought around banding together spontaneously.

But also, it's still Forza Horizon. It is, will always be, and will never amount to anything more than iterative improvements. If you are not prepared for that truth, you are not looking at FH6 or at Forza in general correctly, and you should be playing other racing games instead. For better or for worse, in spite of the fact I think this is the best Forza Horizon yet, it's an iteration, not a revolution. "Built from the ground up" will never happen.

But at the very least, I can feel the love that was poured in this game, I can tell this is the one the dev team wanted to make for a long time, and it was worth the wait and the extremely long string of DLCs on FH5. This is a game I'm happy to recommend and buy copies of to my friends.

Nobody EVER reads my reviews, So I'll Eat 1 table spoon of Сum for every Like this Gets!

Man arrives home tired from work.

Man enters the game.
Man turns on a great playlist.
Man chooses a vroom vroom and drives it around Japan = Happy man.
Man wins race = Happy man.
Man loses race = Man frustrated and angry, but goes vroom vroom and becomes happy.
Man + Vroom Vroom = Happy man.

Probably the best horizon game to date.
Amazing massive map with lots of variety. Tons of cars from more popular ones to more niche ones.
Finally good music on the radio again and actually interesting story and dialogue.
Fun story missions and nice sense of progression.
Graphics are stunning and performance feels great.

Forza Horizon 6 is the first game in the series that I’ve ever played - and honestly, now I’m wondering why I didn’t start playing earlier.

The map is absolutely beautiful. Whether it’s cities, landscapes, or small hidden places, there’s always something to discover. Graphically, this game is just TOP. Sometimes you’re simply driving around thinking:
“Okay… this could literally be part of a trailer.”

Since this is my first Forza game, I can’t really compare it to the older titles. But I can definitely say this is the best car racing game I’ve ever played.

What I especially love is how relaxing the game can be. You can completely decide for yourself how you want to play:

- just cruising around and enjoying the scenery,
- battling with friends,
- spending hours drifting,

The cars are amazing as well. Obviously I haven’t seen or driven all of them yet, but so far every new car has felt like a small highlight. From chill cruise cars to complete rocket monsters, there’s everything.

The different activities also make sure the game never really gets boring:
races, drift zones, speed traps, story missions, exploration missions, food deliveries, and many more things. The variety is honestly insane.

The collectibles are surprisingly fun too.

I also really like the stamp and wristband system. You constantly have small goals to work towards, unlock new events, and stay motivated to try new things. Because of that, the gameplay always feels fresh and enjoyable. I’ve also managed to create some pretty cool cinema shots along the way.

To put it simply:
Forza Horizon 6 manages to be relaxing, motivating, chaotic, and beautiful at the same time - and that’s exactly why it’s so incredibly fun.

First impressions.
More of the same, but Japan is the nicest map yet.
Pros.
-Very cool big city to race in
-Cars look and sound a bit better
-Wheel spins are better now, they removed the stupid clothing crap
-The garage is pretty cool
-Fast travel is way better
-Car customization is improved
-They added fun little Japanese sound effects
-There's a Gundam

Cons.
-Character creation is a disgusting experience, it feels like they are trying to compete with Diablo 4 on who has the ugliest looking people, some don’t even look human
-Still cannot skip stupid cutscenes that serve zero purpose
-You have to mess with game files in order to enable Japanese voice overs, which is incredibly stupid. How is this not an in game option?
-It's weird that the city has zero anime ads, makes it not really feel like Tokyo, seems more like a westernized Tokyo...

Hello my friends! :)
New day, new test—today:
Forza Horizon 6 on the Steam Deck! :)
The game runs pretty well overall; outside the city, you get an average of over 40–50 FPS, though unfortunately, inside the city, frame rates drop as low as 20 FPS. :/ I’ve put together a short video about it here; I’ll be following up with more tests—specifically in the city and so on—over the next few days. :)
Thanks for your support! <3
Pre-Conclusion:
+ Game launches
+ Controller support
+ Playable (decently)
- FPS drops in the city
- "Verified" status (undeserved, in my opinion)
Here’s the video:
https://youtu.be/5LkuIoXApN0

After playing a few hours I can say FH6 is fantastic. I foresee myself investing a lot of time in this one. Highly recommended

Beautiful map. It's not a barren wasteland like FH5.

The dialogue is still cringe but slightly less so than 5.

For fans of the Horizon series it's exactly what you would expect. For people who've never played Horizon before, it's much more of an arcade game than a sim.

The graphics are incredible, and even screen space reflections look great in this game. Raytracing is a bit much, and it stutters a lot, not worth the performance hit in my opinion.

Forza Horizon 6? More like Forza Horizon 5.5 - but that’s definitely not a bad thing.

FH5, at its core, was a good game, but it suffered from a lot of annoying bugs and questionable design decisions that really hurt the overall reception. In FH6, a lot of those things have finally been fixed, along with several quality-of-life improvements. Because of that, this isn’t some huge revolution - it’s the long-awaited evolution of an already great title.

Starting with performance - on an RTX 3070 8GB + i7-12700K + 32GB RAM setup, I can comfortably play at 1440p with 72 FPS, Ray Tracing enabled, frame generation on, and a mix of Extreme and Ultra settings. Yes, there are occasional artifacts in tunnels and some light ghosting here and there, but you honestly don’t notice it while focusing on racing.

The game looks phenomenal, and the setting definitely helps with that - beautiful landscapes, dense infrastructure, neon lights, cherry blossom trees with petals flying everywhere… it’s impossible to compare this to FH5’s lifeless Mexico full of endless deserts. It also feels like the Ray Tracing, shadows, and lens flares have all been noticeably improved in this entry.

The handling model has changed as well: suspension, grip, and braking all feel different now. Trying to build the same power-build monsters from FH5 will send you straight into the first corner here - you actually need to pay some attention to grip this time.

Now for the controversial part - visual customization. If you’re a fan of crazy bodykits like in NFS or The Crew, then yeah… it’s not great. But if you prefer OEM+ styling, building sleepers, or just adding a subtle ducktail or a small spoiler, I honestly don’t feel like this game is lacking. There are still some bodykits available, there are parts that let you turn certain cars into proper civilian versions (especially some Audi models), and you can still throw on a wing if you want. For me, that’s enough.

Another controversial topic - progression. I’m really glad they added at least some bits of story back into the game, along with side missions and actual narrative elements. It’s a nice break from endlessly collecting wristbands and doing similar races again and again. Locking certain races behind specific classes also makes sense and pleasantly slows down the moment you jump straight into Lambos, Ferraris, and Porsches. It’s nowhere near NFS-level storytelling, or even The Crew, but by Forza standards - this is probably the best it’s been in a very long time.

And now the most important thing - improvements that honestly should’ve arrived back in FH4 already: improved engine sounds, tire sounds, terrain audio, and ambient effects overall. Antilag and backfire effects finally don’t sound cheap and artificial like they did in FH5. There’s now an option to set drift camera behavior separately for first-person and third-person views. Window stickers. Different wheels for the front and rear axle. Garage customization. I could honestly keep going, but the point is simple - features that were good ideas in FH4 and FH5 finally work properly here. Took them long enough… good job, PG and Turn10.

So, is it worth the money?

I spent over 1500 hours in FH5 and played it right up until the final update. If you have similar preferences to mine listed above (and if the devs support this game for as long as they supported FH5), then I genuinely think this is a game you’ll be buying for years, not just for months.