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E-cards Forza Horizon 6 Review – The Ultimate Arcade Racer Evolves Again
Forza Horizon 6 finally takes the Horizon Festival to Japan, delivering neon-lit Tokyo streets, mountain touge roads, drifting culture, and the most atmospheric open world the series has ever created. While it doesn’t reinvent the formula, it refines nearly every aspect of it into one of the best arcade racing experiences available today.
There are two things Forza Horizon fans have wanted for years: Japan—and even more Japan. Playground Games knew this all too well, which is why the sixth installment of the series finally takes the high-speed escapade to a land of neon lights, mountain switchbacks, and nighttime drifting sessions that will make you feel like you’re in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The absurdly long wait, however, has paid off, and after just the first few kilometers of gameplay, it’s clear that this isn’t just cheap fan service for the wishlists of eager fans.
Forza Horizon is now such an established brand that it would sell even without the driving itself. However, the developers aren’t just relying on the series’ name, nor are they hiding behind past successes. No. They’re embracing them and adding a ton of new features to the tried-and-true (and extremely popular) formula. We get the largest open world in the series, a car experience that’s over-the-top in many ways, and exactly the kind of arcade fun where you tell yourself “just one more race,” only to find three hours later that you’re still racing through rainy Tokyo to the sounds of Japanese synthwave. Yeah, it’s happened to me more than once.
And even though the game isn’t without its minor flaws, it gives fans exactly what they wanted. It’s just that now it’s noticeably bigger, louder, cooler, more beautiful, and more true to life.
Japan Wasn’t Easy to Pull off, but It Was Worth It
For years, Playground Games has been proving that the Forza Horizon series is about more than just cars. Sure, hundreds of vehicles, an arcade-style driving model, and the technical aspects remain the cornerstone of its success, but the developers have gradually turned the game world into the main attraction of the entire series. And perhaps that’s exactly why, before each new installment, there’s more buzz about the destination than the car lineup itself.
After Mexico, Britain, and Australia, Japan has finally arrived—a country fans have been asking for practically from the very beginning. And it must be said that the studio handled this pressure with admirable ease. In short, it’s a meticulously crafted automotive paradise. At the same time, I believe that waiting until the sixth installment to include Japan was an excellent move, because only today’s technological capabilities allowed the developers to fully capture the atmosphere of Japanese automotive culture exactly as fans have imagined it for years.
Fun fact: Japan in Forza Horizon 6 isn’t just about mountain serpentines and legendary touge drifts, as seen in Initial D, for example. Equally impressive are the night drives through rain-soaked Tokyo, where the neon lights of the iconic Shibuya district create an atmosphere straight out of the best street racing movies.
The undisputed star of the entire game is Tokyo (we’ll get to the map in a moment). Playground even created a separate team just for it, and the result is evident practically everywhere—from the wide, endless streets surrounded by skyscrapers to the narrow alleys bathed in lights of every color, small businesses, and iconic landmarks like Shibuya, Akihabara, and Tokyo Tower.
At the same time, however, the city also highlights one of the game’s compromises. Traffic is noticeably sparser than one would expect from the real Tokyo, and it feels suspiciously empty. The same applies to the city’s population density, where instead of bustling, crowded streets, we get a few people standing here and there along the roads. It’s a bit of a shame that in the campaign, the metropolis itself plays second fiddle, and most of the action is concentrated everywhere but there.
Fun fact: Tokyo in Forza Horizon 6 isn’t just wide boulevards and neon intersections. The narrow city streets also feature tiny Japanese Kei Cars, which are perfect for more leisurely drives or food delivery in one of the mini-games.
But Forza Horizon was never meant to be a driving simulator or a realistic recreation of a Japanese metropolis. It’s a massive open playground where you can race at 300 km/h across dusty roads, forests, snow-covered mountain passes, rice paddies, and country roads without being stopped by a line of taxis every ten seconds.
And it is precisely outside of Tokyo that the game shows its greatest strength: freedom. The map is vast, diverse, and practically boundless, and it truly shines in the details that you only begin to notice after several hours of driving.
I believe the studio will revisit traffic and population density in a future update, and that for now, the focus is primarily on optimization to ensure the game runs as smoothly as possible at launch. Besides, it doesn’t matter at all outside the city, and you’ll enjoy the drive much more there. It probably goes without saying that Tokyo and its surroundings are the most detailed locations in the series, and after Mexico in Forza Horizon 5, this is a welcome change.
Anything But Generic
One of Forza Horizon 6’s greatest strengths is the way it constantly shifts the driving atmosphere. While Mexico in the previous installment often relied on vast open spaces and long stretches of barren landscape, Japan feels much denser, livelier, and more diverse.
Every few minutes of driving, the character of the roads and the environment itself changes. From modern highways full of tunnels and bridges, you suddenly find yourself in narrow passes between beautiful hills, then in small villages, on forest roads, or among fields lined with cherry blossoms.
Fun fact: The Forza Horizon 6 map is full of hidden spots that reward curious players. As you explore, you might come across traditional temples, lookouts, or the iconic Tokyo Tower, and if you take photos of these scenes in photo mode, the game will reward you with bonus points, credits, or new cars.
This time, Playground Games paid even more attention to detail, and thanks to that, the map doesn’t feel like a backdrop for races but like a real place with its own identity. The villages are anything but generic, the landscape isn’t made up of repetitive patterns, and practically wherever you look, you’ll find something that makes you want to slow down for at least a moment. If you want to, that is.
The ride is also enhanced by the most extensive soundtrack to date, allowing you to tune in to up to 9 radio stations featuring artists such as Linkin Park, BABYMETAL, Pendulum, YOASOBI, Rise Against, and hundreds more. In the city, you can tune in to something harder and more energetic, while in the countryside, you can opt for a calmer pace and Japanese folk instruments.
The Seasons Are Back and More Pronounced
The seasons are also making a big comeback; the series has featured them for several installments, but this time they’ve been given an even more pronounced look. While driving, not only do the weather and time of day change, but so does the landscape itself—from blooming pink cherry blossoms to snow-capped mountains in the background. And these are among the best parts of the entire map. For the first time ever, Forza Horizon 6 features a permanently snow-covered region with a ski resort, lifts, and slopes that you can race down not on skis, but in a car.
The result is moments that, at times, feel more like a wild road trip than a classic car or motorcycle game. One minute you’re drifting past waterfalls, a few minutes later you’re “flying” through a snow-covered canyon, and then you end up on a ski slope somewhere high in the mountains. And that’s exactly when you realize this isn’t just an ordinary map for an ordinary car game, but an arcade adventure on four wheels.
Online Events and a More Natural Game Progression
Forza Horizon 6 isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel—and it doesn’t have to. It offers a massive open world, hundreds of licensed cars, and exactly the kind of arcade driving where fun matters more than realistic simulation—though purists focused on authenticity will find something to enjoy as well. Online mode and live service support with new cars and activities are, of course, back again.
Compared to the previous installment, however, the game feels a bit better in terms of progression. This time, you don’t start as a festival star, but as an ordinary enthusiast who has to gradually unlock bigger events and more powerful car classes.
With each step forward in the game, a new wristband symbolizes your move up to a higher performance class. New cars are still very easy to obtain, but “leveling up” has a slightly more natural rhythm. Plus, there are a few exceptions where you’ll have to work really hard to get certain cars.
There’s no shortage of the traditional spectacular events featuring airplanes, robots (we are in Japan, after all), or absurd tracks, though this time they didn’t leave as strong of a “wow” impression on me as they did in previous Horizons. The main reason is that we’ve already seen similar shenanigans in the series, so I treated them as a mandatory item on the checklist. But I’m convinced that the community will iron out these kinks over time. After all, this is a live-service game with the ability to create custom add-ons and mods, a feature that was fully realized in previous installments.
Engaging with Japan’s Car Culture
The game makes full use of the landscape and strives to introduce it to the player through various in-game events. In addition to the classic Horizon Festival, there’s now a host of activities focused directly on Japanese culture and the car scene. This time, the story missions no longer feel like boring filler between races, but rather as pleasant detours that naturally lead you through the nooks and crannies of the map.
One moment you’re hanging out at a tuning garage, the next you’re testing tires in the mountains or on the coast, or heading out on a photo trip through lesser-known areas. And while the dialogue still suffers from the typical “Horizon” over-the-top positivity, this time it feels much more natural and entertaining.
Playground has also done a great job of capturing Japanese car culture itself. It features iconic mountain races, online meetups at legendary parking lots inspired by real-world locations (like Drift Club Japan in Tokyo City), as well as spontaneous drag races and time trials that you can jump into almost immediately.
The division of the map into regions with their own collectible activities, hidden cars, and other little details that motivate you to explore every corner of the world works very well. Thanks to this, Japan doesn’t just feel like a pretty map, but like a place where it makes sense to stop, wander around a bit, and sometimes just soak up the atmosphere.
You Won't Find a More Visually Stunning Race
At Playground Games, they simply know exactly what a modern arcade racing game should look like. The driving mechanics remain accessible to virtually everyone, yet they don’t feel clunky or overly simplified. The cars have distinct personalities and respond to the road surface, weather, and speed.
Horizon 6 thus strikes a perfect balance between pure arcade fun and controls realistic enough for both casual players and those with a steering wheel and pedals to enjoy the ride. And yes, it’s still true that crashing through a fence, jumping over half a forest, and continuing on without major consequences is often the best possible plan.
I welcome the change in environmental destructibility, which made me incredibly happy. While in previous installments even the smallest tree or stake in the ground could bring a car to a screeching halt, this time the developers were more lenient. The significantly reduced number of unwanted stops enhances the driving experience both in races and during free-roaming through the countryside. It’s not that it never happens, but it doesn’t happen nearly as often.
The technical side is once again among the absolute best in the genre, and Japan looks fantastic both during the day and after sunset. The game excels particularly in its handling of light, reflections, and environmental details. The car models are beautifully rendered both inside and out, and the game maintains very stable performance even in large open areas.
Fun fact: The mountainous areas offer plenty of vantage points from which you can see villages, endless winding roads, and Tokyo at night in the distance. Towering over the entire landscape is the iconic Mount Fuji with its snow-capped peak, which is one of the most striking landmarks on the entire map.
It’s true that, compared to Forza 5, this isn’t a generational leap in graphics, but Horizon 6 makes up for it with extremely polished optimization and overall smoothness (thanks in part to the aforementioned lower traffic and population density). The weak points remain the character animations and dialogues during story scenes, which feel a bit outdated compared to the rest of the game. Fortunately, there aren’t many of them, and you’ll spend most of your time behind the wheel anyway.
Technical details such as car damage or visible environmental changes in response to driving haven’t improved much either. Take, for example, the lack of tire tracks after driving through mud. While the cars look scuffed and you can see dents in the bodywork in various places, it’s all done in a half-hearted manner. And that’s a shame and a missed opportunity.
More Customization Possibilities in the Garage Don’t Automatically Mean Better
On the other hand, a new feature is the significantly expanded options for homes, garages, and personal estates. These are no longer just ordinary safehouses for quick travel across the map, but spaces that players can partially customize and use to display their car collection.
The developers have clearly tried to move the game closer to a “car enthusiast lifestyle,” where it’s not just about the races themselves, but also about the feeling that you’re building your own corner of the automotive world. It sounds great on paper, and at times it really does manage to create a pleasant atmosphere of a “digital dream garage.”
The problem is that the editor itself feels unnecessarily complicated and a bit half-baked in places. While the customization options are vast, the controls are chaotic. At the same time, the selection of usable items is somewhat limited, which means only one thing—community modders will eventually come to the rescue with improvements that make life in the garages easier for players. You won’t find options to put posters on the walls here, but you can get a dinosaur to go with your cars...
And while we’re on the subject of those garages... The game offers an absurdly large and diverse fleet (more than 550 licensed cars), where practically everyone can find their favorite car. Brands like Porsche, BMW, Ford, Honda, Toyota, Ferrari, and Lamborghini are all here, and the game does a great job of combining classic Japanese icons, everyday sports cars, and extreme track-focused specials. There are even vans and family SUVs. The result is exactly the kind of garage where you find yourself wondering every few minutes which car you’ll drive next.
Compared to the previous installments, they haven’t made much progress with tuning, and the experience is practically the same. The game offers a vast array of options for customizing performance, engines, transmissions, and suspensions, and more experienced players can really have a blast tweaking the detailed handling settings.
The visual aspect of customization, however, is still a bit more conservative, and while some cars get a variety of body kits and spoilers, with others you have to settle for only minimal changes.
Engines, Turbos, and the Sound of Tokyo at Night
One area where Forza Horizon 6 truly stands out (within the series) is its sound design. The cars finally don’t feel like different shells for a single engine with adjusted volume levels; instead, they have their own distinct character and personality. The differences between individual vehicles are immediately audible, from aggressive turbos and rumbling exhausts to subtle details during shifting or braking.
What’s more, the game does a great job of handling the ambient sounds of the track. Crashes into guardrails and jumps over curbs have just the right impact and beautifully enhance the sense of speed. These are small details, but they’re exactly what makes the driving experience much more vivid and intense.
Forza Horizon 6 on Xbox – How Did it Perform and What Mode Did I Play In?
On the Xbox Series X, I practically immediately settled into Performance mode, and with such fast-paced arcade driving, I had no reason to look elsewhere. Forza Horizon 6 runs in dynamic 4K at a completely stable 60 frames per second and looks incredibly good.
Dynamic resolution works so seamlessly that if the developers hadn’t mentioned it, most players wouldn’t even notice it (including me). And yes, there’s also a Quality mode with a more native image, but in a game where you’re flying at 300 km/h through cherry blossoms, 30 FPS felt about as natural as drifting in a van.
A Laid-back Addiction for a Relaxing Evening
“I’ll just do one more race,” and three hours later I’m still drifting somewhere in the mountains under a starry sky. Yes, that’s how many an evening went with the Deluxe Edition on my Xbox. Once again, the pacing is spot-on, and the game constantly pushes you to try new cars, disciplines, and explore uncharted locations.
One moment you’re racing in classic road races, the next you’re chasing each other in drift events or completing showcase missions, which the series has loved for years. This time, however, these spectacular battles don’t feel quite as wild and memorable as they once did. There’s no shortage of adrenaline-pumping moments or cinematic presentation, but Playground has kept things a bit more grounded in this regard this time around.
I enjoyed the "Discover Japan" mode much more; it serves as a nice contrast to the classic festival. Through a series of smaller missions, the game introduces you to Japanese car culture, the drifting scene, and the regions of the map themselves. Here, you’ll deliver food through the streets of Tokyo, or tackle tuning projects and challenges in the mountains.
And then there’s the online component, Horizon Play, where Forza truly becomes a massive community playground. Parking lot meetups, community events, and player-created tracks are now just as integral a part of the series as the races themselves.
Multiplayer is also a key part of the experience. Sure, you can play offline, but the Forza Horizon series really comes into its own in the online world. In short, it’s the same system as before, where you’ll run into other players anywhere in the open world or compete in online races. These are all aspects of the game that draw you in and keep you hooked. Time slows down, and before you know it, it’s flown by.
Verdict: 9/10
Time to wrap things up. And in grand style, because Forza Horizon 6 is the kind of sequel that doesn’t revolutionize the series, but instead hones it to near perfection. Japan has been a dream destination for Horizon for years, and the result shows that the wait was worth it. A fantastic open world, incredibly addictive driving, an extensive car roster, the amazing atmosphere of Tokyo’s night streets, and a wealth of all kinds of content make the game one of the best arcade racing games of today.
Yes, there are minor flaws like sparse traffic, weaker showcase events, or an imperfect garage editor, but none of that ultimately detracts from the fact that Horizon 6 is the best game in the series. It can keep you hooked for tens to hundreds of hours; the developers have improved everything they could, and "six" has easily become the new standard in open-world racing. This is exactly what a sequel should look like, and we’ve actually gotten used to it in the series, one installment at a time.
