Forza Horizon 6 Is Every Japanese Driving Fantasy Rolled into One: Hands-On Preview

There is something magical about being unleashed upon a Forza Horizon map for the first time. I’m restricted from showing you the first few minutes of my hands-on with Forza Horizon 6 in the video above, and I think that’s more than fair enough. I’m hesitant to even describe it, since the carefully curated opening drive of a Horizon game is really something best experienced for yourself, without any spoilers.

I can, however, safely cover anything and everything I did after I’d passed the prologue – and I’ve been doing plenty. Alongside establishing that the preview build was locked to the 30 FPS “Quality” mode – and that the 60 FPS “Performance” mode will be available in the full game at launch – the preview documentation Playground supplied to us explained this preview was good for around an hour of linear play. It would, however, subsequently support as much free roaming as we saw fit. On my first day, I played through that hour, and then another, and then another, until it was suddenly well after midnight. The following morning I dived straight back in and played all day again.

If the preview didn’t have a cutoff time, I can guarantee you I’d still be playing it now. Not bad for build with just a tiny sliver of the 550 cars coming on day one, and barely a handful of actual racing events.

Our Forza Horizon 6 preview contained three race events (a cross country, a road race, and trail race), as well as a smattering of familiar Horizon PR stunts (several of which were drift zones set on what are easily already amongst the best ribbons of switchback-filled roads in the whole series). The races were in service of earning the right to qualify for the Horizon Invitational, which will be our pathway into the Horizon Festival proper in the final game (although the Invitational itself was not part of this preview build). As previously discussed, Forza Horizon 6 is returning to the tiered wristband structure of the original Forza Horizon.

I like the presence of race marshalls and other festival infrastructure at the staging area for races. There’s a level of credibility this sort of thing injects into the atmosphere, which helps the festival itself feel like it’s a big operation run by actual people – and that there’s more to it than just icons, menus, and loading screens.

I will say the initial trio of cars has left me a little curious. That said, I’m not completely sure whether or not the selection itself is reflective of exactly what we’ll see again in the full version of the game next month, or whether this was some kind of compromise for now that’s bespoke to this preview build only. I honestly don’t mind that they come carrying modifications already, before you even slip behind the wheel. That is, it’s probably more authentic that the first Silvia or Celica you’d slide into after landing in Japan would have had some work done from a previous owner. Actual unadulterated, bone-stock survivor cars are arguably far rarer prospects in this context. What has tripped me up, however, is the slightly odd spotlight on the distinctly American GMC Jimmy. As a car dork, that’s a bit too random for me – especially when Japan is already home to some of the most iconic off-roaders ever made. There were differences in the cars featured in the footage from Playground you saw during our March IGN First – compared to some of the cars I saw in these situations while visiting the actual studio itself in February – so it is perhaps possible it’s still a placeholder at this point. For now, it is just a little weird that this isn’t, say, a Nissan Safari, or a Toyota FJ40.

For someone who’s spent hundreds of hours in each Forza Horizon dating back to the series 2012 debut, the events themselves felt quite typical of Forza Horizon’s robust and reliable brand of racing. The racing is good, which is what I expected, although I’ll concede I didn’t feel compelled to replay them during my limited time with this build. What truly hooked me was cruising the world.

I just can’t get enough of it.

Forza Horizon 6’s map is a showstopper. My glimpse of it during our February visit to Playground gave me a hint of the scope and contrast the studio’s vision of Japan was going to offer but, in retrospect, the corridor of the map I was ultimately privy to at that time barely scratched the surface.

I’ve always been a total sucker for that authentic feeling of digital tourism that a truly high-quality open world is able to provide, and Forza Horizon 6 is absolutely oozing with it. My initial reluctance to comb though the map too thoroughly before the full game arrives next month was rapidly overridden by just how successfully the world of Forza Horizon 6 immersed me in its Japanese driving fantasy. I’ve found myself constantly compelled to explore and discover, with every new road bringing with it something eye-catching and interesting.

I’ve loved visiting the local race circuits dotted all over the map. Only one was an active time attack location in the preview build, but all of them could be explored and driven on – including an unsealed dirt circuit and a dedicated drift track. Despite my general reluctance these days to get too drawn into any competitive back-and-forth in games I typically play to relax, I guess I did get an appropriate enough kick out of finding a way onto the leaderboard at the time. However, more broadly I just liked being at them. I love their rural, grassroots motorsport feel, and I can’t wait to spend so much more time at them with my friends and my sons. They just have so much charm and character, and their worn kerbs, cluttered pit areas, and piles of hastily painted safety tyre bundles make them feel like authentic places with real history.

I’ve loved going for long drives through the countryside to observe how the surroundings change. I can confidently say already that Forza Horizon 6 is far and away the most beautiful Horizon game to date. Driving up to the Japan Alps, the gradual blend of increasing amounts of snow on the ground is gorgeous, and I love the vivid contrast between the lush green grass and the beaming white snow shining in the sunlight. Ascending along stretches of mountain road, portions of which have completely carpeted in blossom petals, was consistently stunning. Discovering shrines tucked away up quiet forest roads, or exploring skinny tracks that aren’t even marked as one of the game’s 662 discoverable roads, has been fascinating.

I’ve loved looking for complex drift lines at the huge docks, snaking around the massive stacks of containers and machinery – and then doing it again, and again, and again. I’ve spent a potentially inordinate amount of time scouring for car parks, and the verdict is: they’re everywhere. Car parks at the race tracks, and tucked away on side streets. Tiny little parking lots hidden beneath overpasses, and a massive, multi-storey monstrosity down at the docks – complete with curved ramps for fulfilling all your Tokyo Drift fantasies. Right now I was only ever discovering these solo, but I can’t wait until these all become personal places to meet up with friends for impromptu car meets or set-off points for convoys. Combined with the seemingly equally high prevalence of petrol stations, I think people who will be really looking to immerse themselves into Forza Horizon 6 in a proper role-playing capacity are going to be particularly excited.

Perhaps above all, I’ve loved hooning around Tokyo City itself. The density and verticality of this space is unlike any other city Playground has made. I can see myself playing entire sessions of Forza Horizon 6 without leaving the limits of the city itself, and that is absolutely not something you could say about any previous Horizon game. It is colourful, it is detailed, and it is so varied – from the engineering spectacle of multi-level bridges and overpasses upon overpasses, to the tight and quaint alleyways webbed across the downtown district.

And yes, I’ve loved getting goofy. While I thought perhaps the Shinkansen might operate in its own little sealed-off instance, I can report that it definitely does not. So if you too want to get hit by a bullet train, you have just over a month to wait. I can tell you that it accelerates a hell of a lot faster than a 1990 Subaru Legacy.

If you’d rather hear more from the developers at Playground Games, we’ve also got you covered with our complete March IGN First dive into Forza Horizon 6, including our discussion on the crafting of the world, the new open-world events, a close-up on seasons, our look at the game’s new customisation options and crazier-than-ever Forza Edition cars, and a glimpse of its new, community-inspired Horizon Rush events.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.