Two months of daily driving is usually enough to separate a good launch-week impression from a genuine long-term verdict. With Forza Horizon 6, that extra time hasn’t changed the overall picture so much as sharpened it: Playground Games has once again built the most polished open-world racer on the market, and once again, it has done so by refusing to take any real risks with a formula that has barely evolved in over a decade.
Forza Horizon 6: our tops & flops
Nothing about the extended playtime changes the fundamental conclusion: Forza Horizon 6 is still the benchmark for open-world arcade racing on PC and console, and there’s currently no serious competitor challenging that position. The driving model remains excellent, the Japan setting delivers some genuinely memorable moments in its rural and mountain regions, and the Touge missions and showcase events are highlights worth playing for on their own.
At the same time, two months in, the series’ long-standing weaknesses are harder to ignore. The relentlessly upbeat tone, the underwhelming rendering of Tokyo’s urban core, and a progression system that removes almost all friction from car ownership all point to a franchise coasting on a formula it perfected years ago. Forza Horizon 6 is easy to recommend and easy to enjoy, because it’s probablky the best racing game on the market— it’s just not pushing itself, or the genre, forward.
Japan looks the part, mostly
The headline change this generation is the setting. After Mexico and the UK, Forza Horizon 6 moves the festival to Japan, and the countryside is where the game genuinely shines. Mountain switchbacks, coastal roads, and alpine routes give the driving model room to breathe, and chasing down Treasure Cars near temples and waterfalls remains one of the most satisfying loops in the series. Blasting a Koenigsegg Jesko past Mount Fuji with Tokyo Tower on the horizon is exactly the kind of postcard moment the Horizon games have always excelled at.
Tokyo City itself is a different story. After exploring it in detail, it remains the weakest region on the map: generic storefronts stand in for recognisable brands, and areas like Akihabara or Shibuya Crossing look the part from a distance but feel hollow up close. The soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting here, with a genuinely strong mix of domestic and international artists, but even a great radio station can’t fully paper over an urban environment that never quite convinces.
Touge missions are the real highlight
The standout addition this year is the Touge racing content — tense, mountain-road duels clearly inspired by classic Japanese street-racing culture. On higher difficulty settings, these missions demand real precision and reward players who commit to close-quarters, high-speed cat-and-mouse racing. They’re also proof that Playground Games is capable of building something with more edge and tension than the series’ usual sunny festival tone allows. It’s a shame this energy doesn’t extend further across the rest of the game.
The showcase events remain another strong pillar after two months of play. Racing alongside a giant mech-inspired vehicle or chasing a rocket launch sits at the more theatrical end of what Forza Horizon offers, and these set-piece missions are consistently the ones worth returning to once the open world starts to feel familiar.
Progression still feels too easy
The biggest issue that becomes more apparent the longer you play is progression. Players are handed a strong stable of supercars almost immediately, and there’s rarely enough friction to force meaningful choices about which car to build up and drive.
Wheelspins and super wheelspins keep handing out credits and high-performance vehicles at a pace that undercuts any real sense of attachment to a specific car — an odd outcome for a game set in a country with such a distinct and passionate car culture. The new Treasure Car system, which sends players hunting for specific vehicles based on photo clues, is a nice touch, but it doesn’t fully solve the deeper problem of a garage that grows too fast to feel personal.
The tourist-inspired side activities, which task players with following simple stories and learning trivia about the region, are pleasant enough in short bursts but rarely add much depth. They work best as a change of pace between racing rather than as a pillar of the experience.
