When it comes to racing game franchises of the 21st century, Forza Horizon has been something of a phenom. Launching as an open-world little brother to Forza Motorsport, it quickly became massive. As most console simulators failed to maintain a foothold and Need For Speed ended up too much of an arcade game, there was a huge white space for Playground Games’ take on the genre to gobble up whole. More than 4.5 million people had played Forza Horizon 5 in the 24 hours after its launch, and it was America’s second-best-selling game in March after releasing for PlayStation 5. There are no signs of the mania slowing down, and with Forza Horizon 6 on the, um, horizon, it seems like it’s going to give the passionate exactly what they desire.
The original Forza Horizon will always hold a special place in my heart. An open-world racer with licensed cars, fun challenges, a killer soundtrack if you ignore a couple of decisions that don’t seem so great in hindsight, and a real festival theme, it united two of my biggest loves: cars and music. That feeling of ripping down dirt roads in a Delta Integrale to the Skrillex remix of “Levels” or blasting through the canyons in an SRT Viper to “Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls) by Foster the People captured a vibe you definitely couldn’t get in the Need For Speed games of the time, much less the closed courses of Gran Turismo. It was just epic, an instant hit that understandably built a huge brand.
The switch from the Colorado setting of the original Horizon to Europe in Forza Horizon 2 was great. Mountain passes, a far more open world to really explore. Admittedly, I wasn’t as attached to Australia in Forza Horizon 3, but Forza Horizon 4 going to Britain felt right. B-roads! Who doesn’t love B-roads? When it was announced that Forza Horizon 5 was going to be set in Mexico, the discourse was loud enough to cause hearing damage. The overwhelming sentiment? Fans wanted a game set in Japan, and they wanted it now.
After all, Fujimi Kaido was a fan-favorite course in Forza Motorsport, and an open-world game set in the mountains of Japan with licensed cars and a decent physics model melds a whole lot of cravings together. Well, five years later, it’s official. Forza Horizon is going to Japan. As Playground Games states:
Japan has been one of the most iconic and requested locations by the community, and bringing the Horizon Festival to this incredible region has been one of our largest ambitions yet. We recognize its importance to our players, and we feel the same way. With the latest advancements in our technology and design, we are creating a game world that we hope you will fall in love with. We can’t wait for you to discover the beautiful landscapes and rich heritage of Japan in Forza Horizon 6 when it releases in 2026.
Exciting stuff, but what can we expect from the latest installment in the wildly successful franchise? So far, we only have a teaser depicting a row of licence plates, transitioning to a computer-generated Mount Fuji. The mountain passes of Japan are such important places for car culture that the setting just feels right, although I’d be surprised if cityscapes aren’t also featured. At the same time, tuning has played such a role in the Forza Horizon series that with this latest journey to Japan, it would make sense to continue existing licensing agreements with brands like Liberty Walk and RWB.
At the same time, I do have some concerns. When Forza Horizon 5 launched, multiplayer was a bit of a mess. In addition, the soundtracks just haven’t hit the same since Rob da Bank parted ways with the franchise after Forza Horizon 2. There’s a whole world of new house music, post-punk, nu-metal revival, and bloghaus from smaller artists out there, with many tracks that make for amazing driving music. As much as I do like the Foo Fighters and Dua Lipa, part of what made the first few soundtracks great is how they tapped into what the Tumblr kids and EDM bros were listening to at that moment. That E3 trailer for Forza Horizon in 2012 with “Show Me A Sign” by Modestep set the benchmark. What a moment captured on your Xbox. Can the new game live up to that?
Screenshot: Forza
Regardless, it’s been a bleak past year for racing games, which is why I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of Forza Horizon 6 in 2026. It’ll launch on Xbox Series X and S, along with PC through both the Microsoft Store and Steam. Give it some time, and Horizon 6 will also show up on PlayStation 5, so if you’re the type of person to Gran Turismo hard, good things should come if you’re willing to wait. There’s a whole lot of hype here, let’s see what Playground Games does.
Top graphic image: Forza
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