Forza Horizon 6 Review
A Beautiful World Ruined By Restrictions
Title: Forza Horizon 6
Release: May 19, 2026
Platform: PC Xbox X|S
Developer: Playground Games
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Genre: Racing
ESRB: E
Reviewed on: PC
Time Played: 16 Hours
--- A GORGEOUS BUT RESTRICTIVE PLAYGROUND ---
I am tearing through a dense forest, smashing through brush and weaving between ancient trees, with a massive 5x skill multiplier flashing on my screen. I am racking up points for a flawless off-road drift when my car suddenly launches into the air and gets completely high-centered on a cluster of rocks. My momentum dies instantly. My accrued points vanish in a flash. And because my car is essentially indestructible, I am left sitting there with a few minor dents and scratches, forced to use the time-rewind feature to undo my mistake. This is Forza Horizon 6. A casual racing experience that gives you a gorgeous Japanese playground to explore, but strictly dictates exactly how you are allowed to play in it.
The environments are set in the beautiful Japanese countryside. You get a wide variety of terrain, ranging from bright coastal areas to snow-covered mountain peaks. It features a dynamic day-and-night cycle, along with many different weather conditions that constantly shift the mood of your road trip. The vehicles themselves look great, featuring a mix of well-known classics and modern works of art. You can customize them extensively with custom paint jobs and decals you can create yourself or download from others. While the cars do show minor visual damage when crashing, they remain stubbornly intact. Sadly, I couldn’t crash in an amazing fashion. It is also worth noting that the performance was mostly smooth, though I encountered minor stuttering during specific races when the screen became highly congested with dense visual assets, like massive fields of flowers.
--- A LACKLUSTER ROAD TRIP ---
The overall story is very lackluster. It serves only as a basic framework to give purpose to unlocking events. You are accompanied by two friends who attempt the Horizon events alongside you and participate in story-related events. Progression centers entirely on earning points to collect wristbands, which eventually unlock massive, cinematic Horizon events. The game does offer specific story-related missions, such as low-stress day-drive caravans. During these, a leader gives a tour, sharing the history of the local area and the cars in your group. I found these caravan tours to be an enjoyable, low-stress change of pace.
A casual racing experience that gives you a gorgeous Japanese playground to explore, but strictly dictates exactly how you are allowed to play in it.
The gameplay mainly involves completing standard races and PR events like speed traps, drift zones, long jumps, and pathfinders. Races are divided into strict classes ranging from D to S. This is where my biggest grievance with the game lies. I usually like to find a couple of cars I really like and just use those for everything. However, that is simply impossible here. For nearly every race, I was limited to a specific pool of vehicles based on class and type. Sometimes it locked me out based on age or abilities. Most of the time, it was something like a rally car race or a race restricted to strictly off-road vehicles. Upgrading a favorite car to a higher class locks it out of lower-tier races completely. My limited real-world knowledge of cars led to heavy confusion, especially regarding why car selection pools differed so drastically for seemingly similar races. In most cases, it was beyond my knowledge why one car could be used in a race while another could not.
--- THE GARAGE GRIND ---
While you can fast-travel home to upgrade or downgrade a favorite car to fit a specific race class, the process feels like a massive chore. You have to sit through long-winded loading screens, typically when entering or leaving your estate. I found it far too time-consuming to travel back to my house to upgrade the engines of specific cars available for certain races. So I upgraded the few I really liked strictly for open-world exploration. For the actual events, I just used what was available for the races that gave more points. Credits are plentiful enough that it is usually easier to just buy a required car from the available pool rather than modifying an existing one. I did find some races that allowed me to take whatever I wanted, and that was exciting. I finally got to take the car I really liked and had put a lot of money into. The other racers’ cars would then scale their class to mine, so I was never going to win without any effort. But those moments were the exception, not the rule. The constant restrictions were a persistent annoyance throughout the game.
The game offers a highly customizable difficulty. It includes a time-rewind feature and even an auto-drive option that can fully take over the car mid-race. You can tweak specific parts of vehicles and do fine-tuning before a race, like adjusting the PSI in the tires for better handling or speed. But I found the driving physics to be incredibly forgiving regardless of your setup. The weather does not seem to have a major impact on driving. There was no significant difference in handling between a dry track and a wet track after a recent rain shower. You can drive off-road through forests indefinitely, as the only major environmental hazard is getting stuck on rocks. Oddly, despite the sleek vehicles, the cars never felt like they were going very fast. It creates a weird disconnect between the visual speed and the actual feeling of momentum.
--- DRIVING WITH GHOSTS ---
My experience was played solo and offline, with the races being populated by Drivatars, AI opponents bearing the names of random players and your real-world friends, creating the illusion of playing with others. As you drive, you constantly accrue points and multipliers through the skill chain system. These points keep building until you stop to bank them. Hitting a wall or crashing causes the accrued points to disappear instantly. Banked skill points can be invested into individual cars as perks. Most perks increase your point generation, but some end-of-line perks grant experience boosts for a set number of specific races.
Exploring different areas and finding collectibles rewards you with stamps. These eventually unlock the exact map locations of extremely rare hidden cars. When found, there is a cinematic moment where you grab a camera to examine the old car inside a barn while your friends discuss its history and rarity. If I were into cars, I would probably have had a lot more excitement and respect for the rare vehicles. I only used them a couple of times, and that was strictly to explore the open world right after they were unlocked. You can also purchase houses that unlock special perks, such as percentage increases to experience or cheaper cars. Only one specific house allows you to customize an exterior track to play on. The others simply allow garage customization and a spot to showcase a car for the online community.
The constant restrictions were a persistent annoyance throughout the game.
--- SETTING THE BAR TOO HIGH ---
The Horizon events are huge, cinematic PR stunts. You will find yourself racing stunt planes or navigating giant winding courses down snowy mountains. The second Horizon event was extremely memorable. It was me racing against something I never would have expected in a racing game about cars. Without spoiling anything, it was a very fun race with some memorable moments throughout the course. The only problem I had with it was that it felt like an amazing reward far too early in the game. The next few Horizon Events I unlocked did not feel nearly as cool. The bar was set pretty high in that early event, and they couldn’t reach it again.
I logged sixteen hours of gameplay, but I eventually ran out of standard races and hit a progression wall. This required a heavy grind through PR events to accrue enough points. The PR event grind became a hard stopping point for me. The game is no longer compelling enough to finish. There is a plethora of open-world collectibles to fill time between races, including mascots, experience boards, and hidden cars. But it simply started to feel very repetitive.
--- RECOMMENDED? ---
If you are a longtime fan of the Forza series, I imagine Forza Horizon 6 will feel like a comfortable, familiar ride in a gorgeous new Japanese setting. However, as someone who has always leaned toward the Need For Speed franchise, this sixteen-hour detour didn’t manage to convert me. The restrictive car classes, lackluster story, and frustrating progression wall overshadowed the beautiful environments. It’s a great game if you are deeply into car culture, but for me, I still prefer the street racing of NFS.