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This franchise dominates open-world racing games, and now fans are waiting with bated breath for Forza Horizon 6.
It's been three years since Forza Horizon 5 was released, and while the ongoing festival playlists and regular addition of new cars are great, players are desperate for a new world to explore.
Here’s everything we know so far about the next Forza Horizon 6 entry.
Forza Horizon 6 Release Date Prediction
2024 is nearly over and there is no sign of Forza Horizon 6. The longest wait we've had between Horizon games is three years, so we are now in record-breaking territory.
With the Horizon games usually releasing somewhere between late September and early November we could be waiting a long time. If we had to make a guess, Forza Horizon 6 could be with us by 21 October 2025, with its first reveal likely to be during a summer Xbox Showcase.
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Possible Location
So far, the Horizon Festival has traveled to the USA, Europe, Australia, the UK, and now Mexico. Rumors of Forza Horizon 6's next location are swirling, but there's one untraveled location that fans are demanding the most: Japan.
Known as the birthplace of the drift scene, Japan is the perfect setting for celebrating car culture. Home of respected car manufacturers like Honda, Nissan, and Toyota amongst many others, taking the Horizon Festival to Japan would bring a wide range of gameplay possibilities.
Drifting a Nissan Skyline through a neon-soaked Japanese-inspired city is a petrolhead’s dream, as is racing along the beautiful highways snaking their way around Japan’s mountainous terrain.
We're also yet to see Japan feature in an open-world racing game. Suzuka features in the F1 series, while Gran Turismo 7 has both several Japanese circuits and the fictional Tokyo Expressway. But beyond that, Japan is underrepresented in AAA racing titles.
We'd love to see an in-depth city, to the scale of TDUSC's Hong Kong, along with mountainous roads and fast highways, but that seems unlikely.
If Playground Games skips Japan for Forza Horizon 6, other touted locations include Germany, China, or even a return to the USA. Some fans are calling for the series to head to the Motor City of Detroit for some all-American automotive action.
A New Horizon?
Despite Forza Horizon 5's rough start, Playground Games has worked hard to turn around the open-world racer. Players continue to flock back week after week for new playlists, races, challenges, and cars to complete and unlock.
There’s a good chance Forza Horizon 6 Will continue the trend started in Forza Horizon 4 and carried over to Forza Horizon 5 with you playing as the same character competing in each festival. However, the series could also head in a new direction.
Former Forza Horizon creative director Mike Brown left Playground Games in 2023 to start a new studio called Maverick Games, leaving the door open for the Horizon series to change course from Forza Horizon 6. He is not the only long-term team member to exit Playground Games recently, which means there is space for fresh ideas and new takes on the tried-and-tested Horizon formula.
Whether it’s bringing back an antagonist as seen in the original Forza Horizon or soft rebooting the series, Forza Horizon 6 can go in a number of exciting directions with a new story mode or feature set.
Carrying over progress from Forza Horizon 4 was beneficial for FH5 players. However, this removed the feeling of progression many were looking for, so adding some grind back to the series would be a good move.
Car List Predictions
Forza Horizon 5 launched with just over 530 cars, and we expect a similar number when Forza Horizon 6 releases. At a minimum, FH6 should launch with the same car list as its predecessor, with some extra ones thrown in for good measure from Forza Motorsport.
Setting Forza Horizon 6 in Japan would be a great opportunity to add in as many Japanese drift and race cars as possible to reflect the scene. February 2023 saw the Forza Horizon 5 Japanese Automotive series debut, giving us a taste of what the Land of the Rising Sun has to offer.
Forza Horizon 6 needs to avoid the mistake made with FH5. Forza Horizon 5 launched with many cars from Forza Horizon 4 either missing or locked behind DLC. We're hoping every car from FH5 will be included in the game from launch, with additional cars added in future updates.
In addition, we're also hoping to see as many cars from other Forza Horizon titles as possible. Players were not happy when Forza Horizon 5 lacked cars from other games in the series, so this is a mistake that should not be repeated.
Platforms
As a Microsoft-published game, Forza Horizon 6 will naturally be released on both Xbox Series X|S and PC. It would be unlikely to release on Xbox One, as more and more games are finally abandoning the old generation of consoles.
Releasing the game purely on current-gen hardware would give Playground Games the freedom to add more content. Open-world games are taxing enough on older hardware, and it’s obvious that the Xbox One has held back Forza Horizon 5.
Large, empty areas of the Mexican map left players with little to do when the game first launched, so we're hoping Forza Horizon 6's map will be more expansive.
We also expect Forza Horizon 6 to be available on Game Pass from day one. Forza Horizon 5 broke records when launching, becoming the biggest release in Game Pass history at the time. There’s no reason why Forza Horizon 6 wouldn’t perform similarly as one of Microsoft’s two flagship racing games.
However, Forza Horizon 6 might not be a Microsoft-exclusive title. Rumors from early 2024 suggested that several Microsoft titles could be coming to Playstation, leading to speculation that Forza Horizon could be one of them.
Although Microsoft later clarified that only four titles would be making the jump to Sony’s consoles, Forza Horizon could still become multiplatform in the future.
Sony lacks a choice of open-world racing games, with only The Crew Motorfest currently scratching that itch, so releasing Forza Horizon on PlayStation for the first time would be a good business move from Microsoft.
If Forza Horizon is heading for PlayStation, it would make more sense to release legacy titles on PlayStation first and keep Forza Horizon 6 exclusive to Xbox and PC to maximize Microsoft's console sales.