Our review of Forza Horizon 6, developed by Playground Games. Available now for Steam/Deck (reviewed) and Xbox X/S.
WHAT IS IT?
The best entry in the best modern racing series.
IS IT GOOD?
It is the best.
WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?
Gearheads. Shuichi Shigeno. My buddy Matt.
START YOUR ENGINES
Growing up, my favourite racing games were, in no particular order, Mario Kart 64, Gran Turismo 3, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles.
Vastly different experiences, to be sure. The first, a cartoony mascot racer with an emphasis on fantastical track design and multiplayer mayhem. The second, a rigorously assembled simulation with top-notch graphics. And that last, now-forgotten one, a stylish arcade racer featuring flashy cars and wicked cool, Fast and the Furious-style, street racing (from the creators of Grand Theft Auto, no less).
Forza Horizon 6 doesn’t necessarily do any of those things better. But it does do each of them really, really well, combining awe-inducing graphics, blisteringly fast quasi-arcade gameplay, and even some cartoony fun, like its absurdly destructible environments and yes, you may have heard about this, at least one race against a giant bipedal mech. Forza Horizon 6 is easily the best entry in this already legendary series, and a late-arriving contender for best racing game of all time.
THE UNREAL DRIVING SIMULATOR
Gran Turismo 3 may have been the game of my childhood, but even I can understand the appeal of the less rigorous arcade-style racers. Where the GT series – including its excellent, current PS5 incarnation – is known for its fidelity to real-world physics and real-world race tracks, arcade racers are, by design, more lax, with entertainingly dubious physics, unrealistic track design, and an emphasis on style over realism.
For over a decade now, Forza has been the best exemplar of that approach.
All of the Forza, or at least the Forza Horizon series (2012 to present) have been excellent, even as the series has increasingly perfected the open-world design introduced by the likes of the aforementioned Midnight Club, not to mention other PS2 racers such as Need For Speed: Underground 2 and Burnout Paradise, in which half the fun is the journey between races.
It’s been fun to watch Forza Horizon evolve. The 2012 original is limited to a fictionalized version of Colorado. 2014 upped the stakes with a Europe-set racer which guides players across southern France and into parts of Italy (notably, the Amalfi Coast). Horizon 3 went to Australia, while 4 (sadly now impossible to find anywhere) embraced the car culture of the U.K., while 5 (which I glowingly reviewed a few years ago) offered up a pixel-perfect digital simulacrum of Mexico, from its sopping wet rainforests to ancient archaeological sites and beachside resort towns.
Last year, if you’d asked me what one racing game is worth playing on modern consoles, I would have said Forza Horizon 5.
FH 6 is better than its predecessors in every measurable way.
STREETS AHEAD
Forza Horizon 6 looks better. It plays better. It moves faster, and yet does so in a way that doesn’t give you motion sickness.
FH 6’s world is impeccable. Like Assassin’s Creed Shadows before it, it’s a delight for the virtual tourist in all of us, allowing players to wander across a beautifully realized Japan, from snowy mountaintops through coastal towns to after-hours street racing in the streets of Tokyo.
Forza Horizon 6 is also, and always, fun.
It’s fun to drive from Point A to Point B. It’s fun to rack up points through the game’s generous skill system, which throws points at you for pretty much anything, good or “bad” – blazing through a speed trap, going airborne over a huge jump, smashing down trees or guardrails.
About that last one: while also true in prior entries, this Horizon is easily the most destructible yet. Your car is basically a 200 kph battering ram, smashing through not just fencing (tired) but also densely thicketed forests (wired) and other hazards like concrete barriers, bamboo groves, and the game’s hundreds if not thousands of collectible mascot statues.
What I especially love about Forza Horizon 6 is how much of its activities occur naturally, uninterrupted by menus or structured races.
Drive through a “Drift Zone” on the map, and the game will automatically trigger a counter which challenges you to rack up drift points while you move through that area. Blaze through a Speed Trap, and the game instantly captures your top speed, rewarding points on a scale of one- to three-stars.
Then there are the jumps, oh the jumps. As with the smashing and crashing of its generous physics system, FH 6 loves to send you seriously airborne. The open world map has specific jump spots which challenge you to generate airtime, but even within the races you’ll have plenty of opportunity to fly through the air at crazy speeds, often in slow-motion. It is absolutely, 100%, unrealistic, and it is awesome.
GO
Races in FH 6 generally fall into one of five categories: stunt challenges (self-explanatory), track races (both on- and off-road; off-road is more fun because I get to drive my beloved Lancer Evo), Midnight Club-style street racing (very illegal, always awesome), cross country treks (my favourite category, in which you race point-to-point across the world map, instead of looping through laps), and drift courses. Pretty much of all of which, incidentally, can be accessed through the game’s optional multiplayer, which allows you to quickly and mostly painlessly hop into online races, co-op challenges, or “convoys” alongside other players.
There are also the occasional gimmick races, making fine use of the game’s more unusual vehicle selection (pickups, old-timey Fords, etc.), and of course the now-famous Gundam race, in which you go head-to-head against a thirty-foot-tall Japanese robot. (Spoilers: you win.)
If Forza Horizon 6 falters anywhere, it’s in the drifting mechanic. This has also been a problem in the past, and it’s clear that in Playground’s desire to offer everything to everyone, they’ve had to compromise on what might have been more accurate (if more difficult) drifting. At least the game makes up for it by offering up several garages’ worth of the greatest drift vehicles of all time, including the fabled Sprinter Trueno of Initial D fame, the Nissan Silvia, and the Mazda Miata.
Exploration is also the name of the game in FH 6, promising just as much, if not more fun, outside the confines of its structured challenges.
I love exploring the idealized, largely unpopulated Japan of Forza Horizon 6. For one, it’s a great way to track down the game’s many secrets, from unlockable vehicles to quasi-hidden (albeit heavily signposted) destructible mascot figures, to properties which can be purchased and then used as fast-travel garages spread across the map. (Though why anyone would want to fast-travel in Forza Horizon is beyond me.)
For another, it’s just such a beautiful, and beautifully-realized, landscape. The amount of time I’ve spent in photo mode (also handily available at the tap of a button) – capturing a shot of my Evo perched on a mountaintop, my VW Beetle snaking through the streets of Tokyo – is almost embarrassing. It’s a graphical showcase from top to bottom, and probably the best-looking racing game ever made. In a sense, it’s what we remember Gran Turismo 3 looking like, even if that game never looked so good.
In short, Forza Horizon 6 is a masterpiece, and easily the must-play game released so far this year. See you out on the road.
***
Final score: 10/10
Visit the official website for Forza Horizon 6 here.
