Forza Horizon by Playground Games and Xbox has cemented itself as the pinnacle of open-world racing for years now. In 2026, they are taking players to the long-requested, beautiful country of Japan in Forza Horizon 6 for even more racing and car-enthusiast shenanigans. But for a series that’s been so highly praised for just about every iteration, where is there room to improve? Well, after having a chance to go hands-on with Forza Horizon 6, and after a brief time with the game, Playground Games has done just that: made a stellar series even better.
The first highlight is just how astoundingly beautiful Japan is as a, well, playground. Playground Games has taken Japan’s diverse scenery and distilled it into an abbreviated version. Each region has its own niche look and feel when driving around it. For instance, one moment you may be in the maze-like streets of Tokyo, the next, you’re driving through and around rice fields. A third, you’re in a snowy location. What is very different is how sudden some of these scenery changes are.
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Specifically, when looking back at the likes of Forza Horizon 5, the dune and forested areas felt accurate to what one would expect from an equatorial landscape. However, Japan’s very different level of diversity when transitioning from cityscapes to rural areas is much more jarring. Granted, it is dense with landscape diversity, and it’s hard to make an abbreviated version of Japan fit into a game-sized sandbox without it feeling like too much of one ecosystem versus another.
Forza Horizon 6 offers the most beautiful area Playground Games has made to date.
Regardless, Japan may be the most beautiful area Playground Games has made to date. Even with only spring available during the preview, the cherry blossoms on the ground, kicked up by the wheels, and in the trees were just stunning to see. This could be the next best thing for those who may never experience the cherry blossoms in Japan in their lifetimes.
Even the cityscape of Tokyo has much more detail than you’d expect for a lived-in area. Such as people just on their daily commute, not just the roaring Horizon fans watching cars go by. The daily commuter trains are going by, the Shinkansen roars by between stations, and it’s always up for a race if you’re fast enough. Tokyo especially feels more alive than other cities featured in Forza Horizon. The city of Tokyo isn’t pausing altogether like previous areas have for the festival.
Plus, there’s still so much to explore in Forza Horizon 6 with all the seasonal changes, weather updates, and more races to do. What was playable was the opening moments through the first big Horizon event. The opening festival showcase race was as epic as usual, showing off what racing in Japan will be all about.
Japan makes for a perfect, long-awaited stage.
Drifting, street racing through tight stretches, off-roading in snowy mountains, wetlands, and foresty areas of the countryside. Many of these races were also available as part of the setup for the first big event, which, sadly, marked the end of the preview.
However, it was nice to see a reversal in how the game will progress. Instead of how it was in Forza Horizon 5, where you focused on a specific race or event type to progress, you now have much more freedom to unlock the showcase Horizon event. All kinds of racing events are scattered throughout the map, giving you more to do throughout rather than focusing on one specific area and slowly branching out to the next segment of the map for more to do.
The diversity of activities is also a welcome change. Like the speed traps, point-to-point races, drag races, and other racing event types, all reward progression toward unlocking the big showcase event. Even in the first batch of races, there were off-road races, some wet spring street races on Tokyo’s streets, some point-to-point races, and more. Forza Horizon 6 definitely feels more welcoming in that regard for every player. However you want to progress the game, you’re able to do just that.
Drifting just got much more user-friendly.
One great surprise was the change to drifting. What was once one of the hardest mechanics to pull off in previous iterations, drifting feels much more user-friendly. This could be because the car used during its showcase down winding mountainside roads had great control.
Yet even the base car that kicks off the player’s journey through Japan’s Horizon festival felt much more controllable when doing drifts around corners. For bringing us to the birthplace of car drifting, revamping to make this mechanic more approachable is fitting.
There’s more, though, that was hinted at and couldn’t have been tested, such as a delivery mode. Could this be a Crazy-Taxi-like mode for the Horizon series? Alternatively, the level of collectibles has also greatly expanded for those who like to explore every nook and cranny. From the jump, there were the usual point signs to find, region-specific mascot collectibles to run over (like a chibi ramen bowl and mochi), and purchasable cars to find.
Forza Horizon 6 is the sequel fans have been waiting for.
Normally, Horizon has barns that progressively spawn through the course of gameplay. While none of these were triggered during the brief preview experience, numerous older purchasable cars were scattered throughout the map. Drive up to one, and you can buy that car.
This could be an interesting change to car acquisition if a significant number of cars are only obtainable via this method. Instead of going through the store, the Horizon lotto wheel spins, or even the season passes, just being able to find purchasable cars in the open world will really push players to explore more and focus less on races and grinding for money.
Forza Horizon 6 is the exact sequel Horizon fans have been waiting for. A long time coming, the Japan location is definitely worth the wait. It’s stunning on the Series X in ways that are hard to describe, even if you are familiar with the country’s picturesque scenery. That, plus updates to core gameplay mechanics, like progression and even drifting, are making the wait for May even harder.
