REVIEW: ‘Forza Horizon 6’ Celebrates All Of Japan With Top-Tier Racing And Vibes

Xbox and Playground Games are synonymous with stellar car gameplay, all thanks to their Forza Horizon series. Now, they are taking us to the long-awaited island nation of Japan for Forza Horizon 6. Japan has long been requested as a location for the car festival series, all in due part to its extensive history and culture surrounding cars. Rumors have even circulated before 5‘s release. 5 years since 5 was revealed, the wait for Japan has been completely worth it. 

Forza Horizon games don’t normally have a substantial story associated with them. You’re a driver who’s a part of the Horizon Festival crew, putting the final touches on the event. For Forza Horizon 6, that changes. While still having minimal story, this game’s about you and a couple of friends earning your way into the races, the festivities, and driver seats of once-in-a-lifetime cars that rarely anyone in the world has driven. 

Your custom-made character begins the journey by meeting some local friends in Tokyo. After getting a taste of the driving scene there, one of your friends surprises you with the opportunity to participate in a Horizon qualifying event that’s about to take place. And so begins your journey to become a Horizon Legend.

A new progression system changes up how you play Forza Horizon 6.

Even a simple premise as that goes a long way for player immersion. Instead of being some random employee who’s a good driver, you are given a bigger connection to the festival. It’s your own skills that’re getting you through the competition, and allowing you to take part in more of the festival. Story is a very minimal part of the Forza Horizon series. At least this time it’s an attempt that also kind of falls to the wayside as you progress, which is fine as you get more and more events to conquer to earn more Horizon wristbands. 

Progression has been changed to match this new approach. Progressing through the ranks is on your terms and is divided into what you want to focus on. Exploration and taking in all of Japan is now done for a stamp book. Doing more locally focused races and events, like Touge races, or doing food deliveries, will earn you exploration experience. The more stamps you have, the more Barn finds you’ll unlock. Exploration leveling is much more open to complete right from the jump and is tied directly to how much of Japan you explore.

Before touching more on that, it’s good to talk about the Horizon wristband leveling first. Horizon wristbands are the key to progressing through the event. The higher rank wristband you earn, the more events you’ll unlock. This is also done on your terms, though. Even with a small subset of races and PR events unlocked for the first rank, you can do a mix of any of what’s available to earn Horizon points, as well as breaking Horizon XP signs. 

The new Showcases are shockingly, consistently good.

Earning enough Horizon points unlocks the Showcase or Horizon Rush event to get the next wristband rank. With the number of Showcase events there are, the consistency in quality of each of them is quite shocking. These are the big showstoppers. They’re each full of tight races against non-car vehicles, like planes, or using the most of Japan’s natural environments. One of the standout ones, however, is best experienced without any spoilers. It’s also the race that is, at this point, the most intense and outlandish race to ever exist in a racing game. 

What a shame that Showcase event takes place about right in the middle of the Horizon Festival progression. All the Showcase and Rush events that follow just don’t live up to the sheer excitement of completing that race. While that one is the most jaw-dropping showcase event, the other that was a major standout is the Rush event on the snowy Japanese Alps. This Showcase event, like many others in the series, focuses on tight corners, drifting, but with the distinct difference of being entirely on a beautiful ski resort, driving up and down the hill. 

There is also a downside to this newer progression system. To unlock the very last Showcase event, you need to earn about 13-14,000 Horizon points. For comparison, the last event only took about 5,000 to unlock. To even unlock the last event and the final area, you’re going to need to get first in every race (which awards 350 points), and complete about every stunt and PR zone (each awarding about 100 points). That’s a massive ask and puts a damper on the fun of working to each rank. Especially when doing each stunt includes at least one-starring the ones you don’t enjoy. 

With over 57 races to complete, they’re all pretty dang fun.

There are a couple of new additions to the stunt and PR events: drag racing and time trials. On top of the returning ones, like drift zones, danger signs, speed cameras, and speed zones, these two are scattered throughout the map and are built to be completed multiple times. Just finishing the drag racing and time trials is enough to earn Horizon points. To get the maximum amount of points from the event, you just have to do it once with each car class (i.e., D through R). 

Thankfully, even with over 57 races to complete to reach the final Horizon wristband, they’re all pretty dang fun. There’s an equitable distribution of point-to-point and lap races. And an even more equal distribution of off-roading, highway, street racing, and unique car races to keep things regularly fresh. There is one downside to the number of races: the car restrictions.

Most of the races restrict you to a specific car class and type. But many times, you’re able to use a car above that car class. And selecting a higher class may lead to a tougher or completely unfair race if your car doesn’t have the right acceleration or top speed.

That’s still true regardless of difficulty level. Any other stat, besides maybe handling, doesn’t seem to be nearly as much of a factor in crossing the finish line first. Several times, skill just wasn’t going to cut it, and a complete race restart to change the selected car was needed just to have a chance at the start. 

Forza Horizon 6 capitalizes on Japan’s beauty.

Regardless, the total amount of content needed to unlock the Horizon Legend rank is quite daunting. At least the game is very fun to play, and Japan is continuously a blast to drive around. Japan is easily the best playground Playground Games has made to date. From the tight streets of Tokyo to the lush farmland and coastal areas, all the way to the snowy mountains, the variety in terrain is astounding.

That’s regardless of seasons, too. The Japanese Alps are always snowy. The beaches will always be there. But seasonal changes make the visuals even more breathtaking than they already are during Spring and Summer. With how expansive Tokyo is in and of itself, that alone could have been a focus for a Horizon game, and with already so much to do, Forza Horizon 6 capitalizes on Japan’s beauty in numerous ways. This is where the key difference in Stamp progression factors in. 

The Stamps earned from exploring are unlocked by doing all kinds of deep diving into Central Japan’s splendor. This is where the storyline-based races factor in, and include all new races that focus more on Japanese car culture. Touge races and drifting are some of the primary race types that are unlocked by finding their events throughout the map, regardless of stamp progress. Same for deliveries, which is a new fun way to earn more CR to buy more cars. 

The new Deliveries offer an optional challenge that will take you all over Japan.

Deliveries is an optional challenge with its own ranks with short races and a modifier for each one. One delivery could be food that is fragile, so you have to get from the restaurant to the orderer’s location without crashing. Another may ask you to do enough tricks before delivering the item within a time limit. One of the other standout new events for this category is the tour races.

These are two-part races that first show you around one of Japan’s many regions while you drive a nice car. Then, you race your friends you’re doing the tour with to reach a specific point. Overall, a nice balance of learning more about Japan while still having fun driving around. 

Lastly, there are some super adorable mascots for each region. If Playground Games releases plushes of these little food mascots, each representing a type of food for a region (like dango for Tokyo), they’d sell obscenely fast. These little guys are like the experience signs. Hitting them with your car will reward you with some more exploration points towards the next stamp rank.

Even if they look terrified after being hit, running into all of them was another great change that incentivized exploring and made each region of Japan feel wholly unique. Almost like each region had its own say in how the Horizon festival would be involved there. 

The new “aftermarket” makes exploring to find new cars all the more worth the time.

One final point to touch on with the gameplay is the cars themselves. Playground Games have outdone themselves yet again with how distinct each and every car feels to drive, regardless of what device you use to play. Finding your favorite car could involve more than the previous route of earning it from barn finds, wheel spins, or the Festival Car Show. Now, cars are scattered throughout the area and are sold as “aftermarket” versions. Each car you find is sold at a nice discount off its normal Car Show price. So, exploring could also lead to you quickly expanding your livery. 

There is just so much in Forza Horizon 6. There’s a whole land that you can purchase now with the basic Horizon credits that you can completely customize and bring your friends to. You can change the landscape to make it perfect for photo ops, or you can make it into a car playground, or even a custom track. 

There’s also Horizon Play, the newer form of online events. This has its own progression and leveling, with its own cars and rewards. After focusing on progressing the exploration stamps and the wristband events, there’s still so much to play that it’s nearly overwhelming with how much there is to do.

Forza Horizon 6 is the near-perfect racing sandbox fans have wanted for years.

That may be the key advantage to Playground Games’ development style. Create the thing, perfect the thing, and expand on the thing without reinventing what came before. That has led to time and again Playground somehow finding ways to outdo themselves time and again.

Forza Horizon 6 is the near-perfect racing sandbox fans have wanted for years. Japan is beautiful regardless of where you go, and Playground Games has capitalized on the country’s natural beauty and Car Culture to create an even better racing game than anything they’ve made before.

New ways to play with friends and the community are just the tip of the iceberg, with how much else there is to do for all the different racing enthusiasts. This has been said once, and will be said again. How can Playground Games surpass what they’ve done here? Every gripe with the game is quite minor, as it never overshadows the sheer joy of driving. Let alone driving around Japan. 

Forza Horizon 6 is available on May 19th on PC and Xbox Series X|S.

Forza Horizon 6 Review – A Racing Must Play

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