Forza Horizon 6

A party 16 years in the making is going down in Japan, and Forza Horizon 6 is your five-star host. After over a decade of globetrotting festivities, the racing series has, at long last, touched down in the beating heart of car culture, and the wait was worth every second.

Playground Games does it again: equal parts adept teacher and artisanal tour guide, Forza Horizon 6 takes the lessons from 14 years of series history and applies them with panache.

With Forza Horizon 6, Playground Games has done what I thought was impossible and improved upon the near perfection of the previous two Horizon games. One that I’ll be playing for months to come.

I am not a car person – I drive a 1999 Mitsubishi Lancer that carries less resale value than the laptop I am writing this review on. Yet, the Forza Horizon series has been an immense source of joy for me since I first gave the Australia-set Forza Horizon 3 a bash several years ago.

Ever the safe driver when it comes to gaming, Playground Games rev their engines on yet another Forza Horizon experience that is both safe and still committed to racing ahead at the pace of good game development. Like the country that it visits on this road trip, Forza Horizon 6 is structured, ordered, and almost accident-free.

Forza Horizon 6 is the win that Xbox desperately needed. Playground Games has clearly looked at the shortcomings of the previous entry — an uninteresting map, samey events, and a general feeling of the series spinning its wheels — and set about improving on almost all of them. Japan is wondrous to explore and race around, and new features like aftermarket cars help inject the series with newfound energy and heightened player expression. It’s not without faults, but it spells an end to the dark patch the racing series has been through over the last half-decade.

Playground Games are masters of the arcade racer. Forza Horizon 6 is the latest in their globe trotting series, this time bringing its neon-soaked motorsport festival to the stunning climes of Japan. That in turn brings a new flavour to the racing action, with anime inflexions, cute food mascots and more of a focus on the iconic stable of Japanese car manufacturers, meaning that the Forza Horizon formula might be familiar, but still manages to feel relatively fresh.

Boasting a gorgeous map that’s filled with delights, slick racing, and some incredible single and multiplayer events, Forza Horizon 6 has, for the most part, iterated for the better. Though lacking vehicle customization holds it back, it is a near-perfect celebration not only of Japanese racing culture, but racing itself that espouses the joy of being behind the wheel. It’s a highly polished jack-of-all-trades fiesta, and very nearly a master of all.

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If you handily win enough races in a row, Forza Horizon 6 will automatically prompt you to increase the difficulty of the opposing Drivatars – Forza's proprietary emulation of real-world racing opponents. After going up a couple of difficulty levels this way, hoping to coax the game's intended experience, I finally landed in a class where races were a legitimate challenge; I'd retry if I finished in the middle of the pack, but moved on after a few podium results as well. I felt this was a more interesting way to play, and figured it was emblematic of how a real-life racing festival would play ...

Forza Horizon 6 continues Playground Games’ stellar streak of best-in-class racing games. The rich setting of Japan offers an abundance of biomes and areas to race through, while providing a unique car culture to highlight. While the racing itself is still excellent, some oddities in the way the game is constructed and a few uncompelling additions keep it from pure racing perfection.

As you'd expect, Forza Horizon 6 is the biggest and perhaps best entry in the series yet. Its recreation of Japan is absolutely brilliant too, with some truly scenic locations to visit and race across. It's just a shame that Playground Games plays it a little too safe, with this essentially feeling like Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Horizon 4 before it – but with a new map.