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The Mexico-set Forza Horizon 5 was such a moment for the franchise; it felt like an announcement from Playground Games that they were prepared to shoulder the burden and fill the hole that each of its contemporaries had fallen into in an attempt to reinvent themselves. It was them planting a flag in the ground and declaring themselves the stalwarts for slick open-world car racing, and my God, it was phenomenal—seemingly untouchable.
But we’re five years further down the road now, and Mexico, and all of the pachangas of the time, is in the rearview. Despite remaining just as safe as prior entries, the franchise’s trip to Japan is just as confident and feature-rich as those that came before it; however, the formula, more specifically anything to do with the series’ titular festival, might be beginning to show small signs of wear and tear. With that said, to exhaust all of my car analogies, it certainly doesn’t require a rebuild.
It should go without saying that there’s a plethora of things to do in a Forza Horizon open-world, and their Japan is certainly no different. Across the several hours I’ve played thus far, I feel as though I’ve managed to sample a big chunk of the shipped content. However, being a live-service game, the title will ultimately be defined by player retention and keeping them locked in to the daily or weekly grind. The game has cleverly divided its lanes of single-player progression, splitting events between the Festival circuit and something they’ve called ‘Discover Japan,’ which, as the name suggests, has been curated with tourism and culture in mind. There’s also an entirely separate progression lane relating to online play, so there’s an enormous pool of activities to take part in.
While bespoke, and partly scripted, events, such as racing against a literal giant mech, which decimates the scenery with its bounding strides, still exist to put a clear full stop on each Festival tier as you ascend the ramp of becoming a quote-unquote legend, a wristband system has been implemented which effectively acts as a level gate for new events and races, which are periodically dumped into the map. While this, for the most part, helps in drip feeding content to the player, the final tier’s toward legend status, and ownership of a spanking new golden wristband, is a pretty gruelling grind when compared to each tier before it.
Of course, it’s the finale, it should ask a lot of the player, but the onslaught of new events, along with the expectation that to reach legend status, you’ll need to practically complete every event anyway, it kind of defeats the purpose of having staggered their arrival.
The other mild disappointment is the lack of pomp and circumstance around achieving legend status. As the sum of your previous Herculean climb through the racing ranks, for it to culminate in a surprisingly drab cruise over the bridge felt lacklustre; especially after previous invitationals had us racing stunt planes, a legally distinct from Gundam© Gundam, and Shinkansen. I also felt like the now-standardised gauntlet events awaiting me on the other side of legendhood didn’t quite justify the grind involved.
On the other hand, I loved everything to do with the Discover Japan arc. While it still has a largely competitive spirit, courtesy of the street-level and mountain pass races, known as Touge, there’s an enormous focus on culture that’s promoted through story-driven ride-alongs that feel like they’re intended to be guided tours of Japan’s more scenic, less densely populated regions. Even the strangest inclusion, being the food delivery truck quests, felt like a great excuse to get back into the thick of Tokyo’s bustling metropolis. You can also earn points by visiting landmarks, photographing things of cultural significance, and smashing cute kawaii mascots, which, like bonus boards, can be found roadside.
The open world really is the star of the game, and I think it’s undoubtedly their best world yet. Of course, despite being their largest city yet, it’s still a boiled-down ‘best of’ that lets you speed from Shibuya Crossing to Akihabara Electric Town in seconds, not minutes, and defies geography by pulling both Mt. Fuji and Mt. Haruna much closer to each other than the hundreds of kilometres that separate them in reality. Unlike their past efforts, I do think that Japan has an incredible variety of scenery that Playground has achieved. One minute you’re careening through a dense, urban network of roads, the next you’re plowing through rice fields or a snow-capped mountain pass.
Outside of the obvious visual splendour, there have been other small efforts made to make this world feel more alive than ever before. While collectibles like barn finds return, which include quirky collector’s items like the two-door Nissan Figaro, there’s a thrill in finding rare aftermarket cars, ‘drive away no more to pay’, on the side of the road.
Once the community builds after launch, it’ll be the emergent gameplay moments that’ll stand out as the most special. Car meets, designated meet-up spots where players can get together, park up, and get the measuring stick out, are designed for those who want to talk the talk, whereas drag meets are geared at those wanting to walk the walk. All it takes is driving up to the starting grid and punching it after the countdown. As a Need for Speed: Underground lover from way back, having an outlet for letting it rip in a straight line excites me. Time attacks, which, unlike a majority of the game’s events, take place at small race circuits, are treated exactly like drift zones or trailblazer events. Driving over the finish line starts the hot lap timer, with best times and bragging rights appearing on a big screen at the track. It’s things like these that add a level of liveliness to the game’s world.
Although familiar, Forza’s brand of racing, which leans arcade by default but can be tuned into something that closer mirrors Motorsport, the sim-focused originator from which Horizon spun off, is still as rock solid as ever. An enormous focus has been placed on ensuring each car’s build and make-up feels unique. Terrain clearly plays an enormous role in handling, and it’s abundantly clear that a Ferrari lacks the necessary traction for dirt, just as a lumbering Land Cruiser isn’t going to cut the mustard setting speed records on Japan’s C1 Loop motorway. These obvious strengths and weaknesses are made all the more evident by the game’s weather and seasons system, which results in incredibly realistic and difficult bouts of on-and-off-road driving.
As silly as it sounds, my main gripe with the driving experience relates primarily to trees. There’s an incomprehensible inconsistency with how trees react in these games. Regardless of girth, they’re either blown into splinters upon impact or are completely immovable, like Ray Martin’s hair. As expected, it’s entirely on the speed you’re travelling, but I’d constantly find myself caught between two ferns and lacking the torque required to push through.
The audiovisual package of Forza Horizon is never lacking in production value, and this sixth iteration is no exception. I’ve already waxed lyrical about the world itself, the game’s star, but the cars shine in the supporting role. Each vehicle is authentically reproduced in-game and can be pored over in the garage; the game is undoubtedly a car lover’s dream. As you’d expect for a game where you’re looking at cars 98% of the time, human avatars are still a tad wooden and generic, while there were a couple of small hang-ups relating to flickering fog and odd lighting in tunnels that did stand out. Of the performance modes available, I opted for frames over fidelity, as I tend to do, and the Xbox Series X doesn’t bat an eyelid.
The game’s emphasis on Mei’s tours does place a spotlight on the voice acting, which, across the board, hasn’t improved a great deal from the last iteration. As far as licensed soundtracks go, and as far as my interests go, this one speaks to me. There’s hip-hop, neo-classical, a selection of alt-rock tracks from Seattle’s indie label Sub Pop, but it’s XS, a station dedicated to hardcore and metal, including artists like Biffy Clyro, Spiritbox, and BABYMETAL, that I kept tuned in.
Although it’s a somewhat safe entry to follow up from Forza Horizon 5, Japan has proven to be an inspired choice for this sixth game. Put simply, Forza Horizon 6 is sensational; it demonstrates a level of mastery that no one else in this genre is capable of and, in the process, delivers on the “craftsman’s spirit,” a principle that Japan and its people hold dear.