Forza Horizon 6 Review – More of the Same, Now in Japan

Playground Games’ Forza Horizon series has proven to be a winning formula. Set against the backdrop of a racing festival, the series moves to a different location with each entry. While simple at first glance, it’s an addictive series that racing fans have enjoyed since 2012. 

With Forza Horizon 6, Playground Games taps into a territory that many fans have hoped for for years – Japan. As an open-world racing series, it’s the perfect candidate to allow players to explore Japan while collecting high-end cars. But does it do enough to justify the ‘6’ in its title?

TL;DR

Forza Horizon 6 is a competent open-world racing game with gorgeous visuals and engaging gameplay. However, with a painfully dull story and a lack of innovation compared to past titles, it’s a great game that could have been phenomenal.

Story – Bland and Inoffensive

It feels strange to talk about story in a racing game, but Forza Horizon 6 demands it. As we previously mentioned, the game centers on a racing festival called the Horizon Festival. It’s a celebration of car culture that happens in different locations around the world. 

This time, the festival comes to the area around Tokyo, Japan. You play as an unnamed protagonist who you’ll customize before the start of the game (and continue to dress and tweak later on). So far, so good. 

The problem, however, lies in Forza Horizon 6’s writing. At its core, this is a street racing game, where players drive around populated areas, streets, parks, and other places where people continue their daily lives. This means the game has an undertone of street racing seen in series like Need for Speed and The Fast and the Furious. 

None of that is present in Forza Horizon 6, which tries to be as vanilla as possible in its writing. Every character is super-nice to everyone else and has no personal opinion on anything. When anything resembling conflict comes up, everyone apologizes to each other in the next sentence. 

Characters constantly promote safe, careful, and friendly driving. Basically, everything that is ‘said’ goes against everything that is actually happening on the screen. This was an issue in Forza Horizon 5 as well, and a major criticism that fans were quite vocal about. 

Playground Games decided to keep the same approach to writing, which is a shame because of how much dialogue and unskippable cutscenes there are in Forza Horizon 6. Arguably, it’s the game’s main criticism, and it’s one that racing game fans should be aware of before picking it up.

Gameplay – Playing the Game Your Way

Forza Horizon 6 is an open-world racing game set in Japan. From a design perspective, it’s open-world first, racing second. It gives players a diverse set of activities to participate in to earn progress and credits to purchase new cars and properties.

In that sense, it doesn’t force you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with or too anxious to do. The only mandatory activities are the exhibition events you complete to unlock wristbands, items that let you access more new activities over time. 

Playground Games made sure that you can play the game and enjoy it regardless of your experience with racing games. You can fine-tune the difficulty of your opponents down to the smallest details and simply enjoy your time with Forza Horizon 6. 

Or, you can increase the game’s difficulty and gain extra credits as a reward for your skills. However, some of the greater difficulty settings are currently too punishing, with high levels of rubber-banding that simply don’t make sense in a racing game where each car has its own statistics set in stone.

Assembling your Collection, One Car at a Time

Forza Horizon 6 is a game that celebrates car culture. As such, it doesn’t force you to use a single car for too long. After just a few hours, you’ll have over a dozen cars in your collection, which you can quickly swap in and out of. 

Cars are separated into tiers depending on their performance, so you’ll need to use certain models in specific events. Other than that, you’re free to drive whichever car you want, whenever you want. 

This makes Forza Horizon 6 progression feel horizontal, not vertical. Meaning, you’ll ‘earn’ your first high-end sports cars just a few hours after starting the game, which can make the whole process feel a bit unrewarding. And if you’ve already unlocked some of the best cars upfront, what else is there to grind for? 

This is the distinction that the game wants you to make. It’s not about what car you currently own. It’s about which car you’ll get next and then which one you’ll get after that. You’ll earn cars by purchasing them, earning them from events, or getting them from wheelspins, the game’s not-so-subtle in-game gambling mechanic.

Discovering Japan, One Race at a Time

The game takes full advantage of the fact that it’s set in Japan. While the writing isn’t great, you’ll still enjoy a lot of the explanations and guided tour events that take you all around the map. 

You’ll explore areas surrounding ancient temples, rivers, mountains, and urban areas in and around Tokyo. As part of its multiplayer mode, you can also join convoys with other players and simply chill around the map while you listen to the game’s radio. 

Certain staples of Japanese culture also make their way into your activities in Forza Horizon 6, including racing a giant robot and playing as a food delivery driver (with separate progression systems included). Similar to Ghost of Yotei, the game truly respects and embraces Japan, and we’re sure players will learn a lot by simply playing the game and taking in the information.

Visuals – Buttery Smooth Experience

As the first Forza Horizon title developed exclusively for current-gen consoles, the game is simply spectacular to look at. Running on the in-house ForzaTech engine, Forza Horizon 6 shines in both visual quality and technical stability. It features two modes: Performance, running at dynamic 4K and targeting 60 FPS, and Quality, running at native 4K and 30 FPS. 

It’s worth noting that the game’s 30 FPS mode still feels crisp due to properly implemented frame pacing, meaning that it never feels stuttery or uneven when receiving your inputs. For a racing game, this is great news, because you don’t have to sacrifice resolution for higher FPS if you prefer to experience Forza Horizon 6 at its most glorious visual quality. 

Whichever mode you choose, you’ll be greeted with a mesmerizing recreation of modern-day Japan. Tokyo’s busy city streets, suburban areas, and surrounding villages are picturesque and atmospheric. 

The same can be said for the game’s many forests, mountains, and open fields. Paired with dynamic weather conditions, a day and night cycle, and an always-online mode that lets you see other players around the environment, it’s a one-of-a-kind experience.

Sound – Roaring Engines, Japanese Radio Stations

Just like the previous games, Forza Horizon 6 features multiple radio stations you can use to keep track of the festival activities. DJs will announce exciting new events or milestones in the story, letting you know where to focus next. 

Likewise, each radio station features distinct music genres filled with various artists and styles for you to enjoy. Given that the game is set in Japan, you’ll also hear plenty of Japanese songs, which give Forza Horizon 6 a distinct flavor. Or, you can turn the radio off altogether and focus on the sounds of your car. There are over 600 cars currently in the game, with more on the way in the form of DLCs. 

Each car features a distinct audio design (in addition to fully explorable 3D models). This means you’ll quickly figure out your favorites and stick to certain cars despite the game encouraging you to always cycle through your collection for every subsequent event. Going back to the game’s story, the line delivery leaves something to be desired. 

Bad writing can’t really be salvaged by good performances, and these are not that good. While it may be an extreme solution, you can also turn the subtitles off and lower the dialogue volume to zero and enjoy what the game does best – open-world street racing.

Conclusion – Should You Play Forza Horizon 6?

Forza Horizon 6 is a great time if you’re a racing game fan. It’s an even better time if you’ve never played a Forza Horizon game before. Because, for as great as the game is, it doesn’t really do anything new with the formula and simply feels like another Forza with a new map. That may not be a bad thing for many people, but it’s worth pointing out. 

Players who never touched Forza, and especially those eagerly anticipating this title on the PlayStation 5, will have a blast playing it. All you need to know is that this is an open-world racing game set in Japan, featuring beautiful graphics and addictive gameplay. At the end of the day, do you really need anything more than that in a racing game?

Forza Horizon 6 is now available on Xbox Series X|S and PC. It will also launch on PlayStation 5 later this year.

Big thanks to Team Xbox for providing us with access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for this review.