Why the time is right for Forza Horizon 6

By November 2025 it’ll have been four years since the last instalment of Forza Horizon was released, the longest break in its history. Two-year gaps split Playground Games’ original Forza Horizon in 2012 up to Forza Horizon 4 in 2018, with Horizon 5 released three years later.

With Horizon 4 drifting into delisted purgatory, and other open-world driving games like Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown failing to hit the mark, it feels like another Horizon game is well overdue. 

Find out why we think the time is right for a new Forza Horizon title below.

Mexican stand-off

Ask the Horizon community if they enjoy FH 5 today and you’ll likely be met with sighs and slumped shoulders. There’s an air of apathy that even Papa Fernando can’t fix, with FH 5 player numbers only just hovering above FH 4’s.

Oddly, this doesn’t tally with the game’s critical reception, as alongside FH 4, FH 5 is the joint-best in the series, gaining an impressive 92 rating on Metacritic.

However, much of FH 5’s gameplay elements are familiar to long-term Horizon players, with most of its in-game icons and mechanics lifted wholesale from FH 4. That’s not necessarily a bad thing considering how polished its predecessor felt to play, but there’s a general feeling the series has stagnated.

FH 5’s Hide & Seek mode, introduced in August ‘24, seemed like a promising example of what to expect in FH 6, but in reality, it’s a re-introduction of ‘Cat and Mouse’ from 2009’s Forza Motorsport 3.

The absence of variety is best exemplified by FH 5’s lack of proper snow, even during Winter playlists. The game is set in Mexico and not Lapland, to be fair, but players still crave a larger city hub than Guanajuato to explore.

FH’s cornerstone of mini dopamine hits, created through the gradual unlocking of cars, events and Wheelspin rewards is a well-trodden path, but it arguably requires more spice to enliven the experience once again. 

Would following The Crew franchise in introducing motorcycles, boats and aircraft to the mix enliven the Horizon experience? Perhaps. Leaning into Horizon’s open world further by allowing players to explore the environment on foot could add intrigue, but that’s a dangerous route to follow given Grand Theft Auto VI is slated for release this year…

No to Xbox One

With no official details revealed for Forza Horizon 6, all we can do is speculate, but FH 6 will almost certainly be the first Horizon title to break away from the technological shackles of the Xbox One, with Xbox Game Studios Chief Matt Booty telling Axios in 2023 that “We’ve moved on to gen nine [the latest console generation].” In the same interview, Booty stated that none of the studio’s first-party studios – of which Playground is one – are working on Xbox One titles. 

Discarding Xbox One compatibility should allow the developer to include larger, more detailed environments in FH 6, much like EA has already done with EA SPORTS WRC and Need for Speed: Unbound, albeit without the drawbacks of using Unreal Engine.

So, don’t expect Xbox One compatibility, but will the next Horizon game arrive in a playable state on the Series S? Modern titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 have pushed the Series S to its limits, so will FH 6 face similar difficulties? More intriguingly, will FH 6 be released for the PlayStation 5, as has been rumoured? 

It’s not beyond the realms of possibility considering several first-party Xbox games, including Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush (whose developer, Tango Gameworks, has subsequently been sold off by Microsoft) have already made the jump. Consider too, that Microsoft’s subscription platform Game Pass is already geared up for multi-platform functionality.

It’s a long shot considering Microsoft still has Series S|X consoles to shift, but perhaps it’s an option for the future.

A change of scenery

Previous Horizon games have visited the USA, Italy, France, Australia, the UK and Mexico. Notably, each location features diverse topography, guaranteeing an interesting driving experience – on and off-road. 

Big in Japan

The countries noted above also have rich car and motorsport heritage to draw from, which is likely an important prerequisite for the next Horizon game’s location. Based on this theory, Japan is an obvious choice for Playground to explore, especially after Horizon 5 recently released a plethora of JDM car DLC. 

The Horizon series also hasn’t visited Asia thus far, so it would make complete sense to base itself in the Land of the Rising Sun. Japan’s roads and countryside offer the kind of variety that players would love too – who wouldn’t want to wrap their Toyota AE86 around a cherry blossom tree on a high-speed touge run?

The iconic expressway between Tokyo and Yokohama – home of the Mid Night Club street racing scene – would also offer suitable car-based cultural thrills, with the neon lights and narrow streets of Japan’s cities providing atmosphere and challenge. Mount Fuji also potentially offers the ideal launchpad for winter-season Horizon high-jinks, especially with Fuji Speedway lying in its shadow. 

Although JDM: Japanese Drift Master (set for a 2025 release) and the CarX series both heavily feature Japanese locations, this shouldn’t present a barrier to Playground given the studio’s comparative embarrassment of resources. 

Likewise, Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown’s Asian setting should be regarded as an opportunity for the Horizon developers to do the continent justice, especially as KT Racing’s title turned out to be one of the biggest gaming disappointments of 2024.

Germany

Germany is another obvious contender owing to its rich vehicular heritage. Karl Benz built the first-ever automobile in 1885, in fact, calling it the Benz Patent Motor Car, predating Papa Fernando’s Vocho by several weeks…

The Eifel region’s Nürburgring Nordschleife has also become a world centre for car culture in recent years, with Kunos Simulazioni trumping the Horizon series by laser-scanning 1,600 km2 of the area’s roads for the forthcoming Assetto Corsa EVO.

But EVO won’t feature the Bavarian Alps (as far as we know), which would help cover all the bases for Germany’s presence in FH 6, with the country’s autobahns, mountain passes and Petter Solberg-taming panzerplattes providing plenty of character.

Germany ticks all Horizon environmental boxes, even before we consider it’s the home of Porsche, Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes.

Other potential locations

Other obvious candidates to host the next Horizon Festival include New Zealand and Finland. New Zealand has beautiful scenery, a thriving motorsport industry and the kind of climate where you can see four seasons in one day. Its back roads are incredible too, making its rally stages some of the best in the world – it’s basically a giant Kielder Forest. 

Finland also ticks all the boxes as a Horizon location and is the spiritual home of rallying, with its round of the World Rally Championship being dubbed the ‘Finnish Grand Prix’ thanks to its high speeds and spectacular action. 

Both locations have the ideal blend of roads, topography and climate but are perhaps a bit too close to Australia and the UK in terms of geography and character. Africa has also been neglected in the Horizon series thus far, so could be a sensible outside bet.

Our money is on Japan or Germany, however.

When will Forza Horizon 6 be announced?

If previous games are anything to go by, Forza Horizon 6 could be announced as early as June 2025. 

Although Playground Games hasn’t officially announced if FH 6 is even in production, the Leamington Spa-based studio is actively hiring candidates for the franchise, which is telling. The success of the Horizon series in the past also makes its release a bit of a no-brainer.

FH 5 was announced in June 2021 at the E3 video games trade show; FH 4 was announced at E3 in June 2018; FH 3 was announced at E3 in June 2016; FH 2 was announced at E3 in June 2014 and FH was announced at E3 in June 2012. 

If only there were some kind of pattern…

Thanks to the death of E3, Microsoft will make the announcement itself this time around, and based on past form the game will likely drop at some point between September and November. You know, if it gets released this year.

Underwhelming rivals

Since FH 5 dropped, it has seen a couple of rivals to its open-world driving crown appear. The Crew Motorfest was released in 2023 and has trundled along nicely for Ubisoft (The Crew’s delisting furore notwithstanding) but was ultimately less well-received than any of the previous FH games (Metacritic score: 76).

2024’s Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (Metacritic 53) was billed as an FH-killer. Sadly, however, its development was beset by staff strikes and delays, with the final product lacking cohesion thanks to frequent server issues and choppy framerates. 

The whole situation was more chaotic than chucking a spaniel’s favourite toy into a minefield, which frankly leaves the door open for FH 6 to reclaim pole position in the open-world driving game race.

Do you think Forza Horizon 6 will appear in 2025? What would you like to see in Playground Games’ next instalment? Let us know in the comments below.