Beebom Score
Racing game fans have long argued with one another for decades. NFS fans still bring up Most Wanted in classrooms, Burnout Paradise drivers act like the rest of the genre never even happened, and Gran Turismo loyalists will always correct your tyre pressure settings mid-convo.
When it comes to the Forza series, Forza Motorsport games are for people who believe lap times are something that defines their personality. But Horizon fans? They never cared about any of that. I still remember the first time I booted up a Forza Horizon title (it was FH4) on my friend’s sim rig, and I asked him, “Where are the races?”, to which he replied, “You’ll find them, just drive and enjoy the scenes.”
That was enough convincing for me to spend the rest of the evening driving across Britain in my Aston Martin and scratch my open-world gaming itch. Horizon wanted me to drive fast through somewhere beautiful. And for five games, it worked!
Colorado, Southern Europe, Australia, Britain, and Mexico each set a genuinely great time for gamers. But there was always one destination that fans kept shouting into the void: Japan, a country built on car culture and street races at night. It was about time that Playground Games finally heard the gamers and delivered.
Honestly, they did not have to cook it so hard that it’s a little embarrassing for every Forza Horizon game that came before it. Here’s my Forza Horizon 6 review that breaks down this stunning trip to Japan, one you definitely won’t forget.
Japan’s Open World Is Absolutely Unreal
The opening prologue of Forza Horizon 6 sets the tone immediately: you’re racing a bullet train down a road through the forest. Within the first ten minutes, you’ve torn through Shibuya Crossing, blasted past Tokyo Tower, and launched an off-roader off a ramp somewhere in Hokkaido while snow flies past the windscreen.
Horizon 6 knows exactly why you’re here, and it’s not even apologetic about it. What makes the open world genuinely special is how varied it feels this time around. Tokyo’s dense street grid gives way to bamboo forests, mountain passes, industrial ports, quiet beach roads, and snowy highlands. The way you zip through them is smooth.
Compared to Horizon 5’s Mexico (a great map nevertheless), Japan feels like it was designed by someone who understood that “exploration” should be more free-flow than just driving from point A to point B.
In Horizon 6, I’d regularly set off for an event and resurface an hour later, having found a hidden mountain route, a scenic photo spot, treasure cars, and no regrets whatsoever. Oftentimes, my wife dropped by to check what I’m playing on my PC, and she’d watch me sing A Thousand Miles as I’m driving along the Rainbow Bridge.
The highlight was when I raced this giant mech on a race track as he destroyed everything in my path, and I still managed to zip through, just for him to initiate a “system failure” at the finish line. Convenient, but definitely the damn race was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and made me scream like a true fanboy.
The game also genuinely engages with Japan’s rich car culture instead of just slapping kanji on road signs and calling it a day. Underground touge races, midnight highway sprints, drift meets on mountain roads that feel straight out of Initial D. These things make Horizon 6 feel like the Japan petrolheads have been romanticising for 30 years.
The Wristbands Give Horizon Real Progression Again
Here’s something that Forza Horizon games haven’t always done well: making you earn things. Previous entries handed you superstar status about 45 minutes in, which made progression feel meaningless. Horizon 6 fixes that from the get-go. You’re a tourist who showed up and wants to race. Before you’re in the Horizon Festival proper, you’ve got to work through seven wristband ranks, namely Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink, Orange, Purple, and Gold.
Even though it sounds simple, it works beautifully and seamlessly. Each rank unlocks new events, new regions, and faster cars. Nothing gets handed to you on a silver platter, and because of that, every wheel spin you earn, every car you unlock, feels actually earned.
The event lineup is the strongest it’s ever been, too. Touge Battles, which are nighttime downhill races through narrow mountain roads, are an immediate series highlight and should probably just become a permanent fixture from here on out. Spec Racing Championships strip away upgrades and force pure skill, which is terrifying in the best possible way.
Car Meets nail the underground scene atmosphere. And Legend Island, the mysterious late-game map that unlocks after earning a Gold wristband, gives completionists something genuinely worth chasing.
I Drove a Ferrari Into Places Ferrari Never Intended
Another thing that Forza Horizon 6 nails beautifully is the sensation of driving. The game features over 550 cars, including hypercars, hatchbacks, kei cars, off-roaders, drift builds, vintage classics, and much more. Even the iconic Warthog from Halo Infinite returns, and yes, I raced it along the Tokyo skyline, and it is actually as ridiculous as it sounds.
But something that truly made me fall in love was how alive every car felt in the game. Playground Games have massively improved vehicle realism through subtle upgrades like tyre tread wear, and a new acoustic system that makes every engine sound deeper, sharper, and more aggressive than ever before. And trust me when I say this, it is the best-sounding Horizon game yet.
I drove my 2018 Ferrari FXX-K EVO in places even Ferrari never thought it could drive. The damn car screams through tunnels, drift cars echo through mountain roads, and classic Japanese tuners like a Nissan Skyline crackle beautifully in the night.
But what about speed? Horizon 6 actually gives you that realistic sensation of speed you’ve wanted. Cars feel dangerous and exhilarating because of how aggressive the camera movement, motion blur, and environmental effects become at high speeds.
Heck, there’s even a new Auto-Drive feature that lets your AI take over while you admire the serene Japan in its full glory. Sounds gimmicky, but works perfectly when you’re cruising through sakura woods.
More Customization Options Than Ever, Call it ‘Car-Sims’
Car customization has always been a strength of Forza Horizon games, and Horizon 6 takes it to the next level. The game comes packed with new body kits, aero packages, window stickers, mixed rim setups front and rear, and deeper tuning options for engines, suspensions, and brakes.
But the real surprise is garage and estate customization. Every purchasable house comes with a fully customizable garage that you can design, fill with your favorite cars, and invite other players in to show off. On the other hand, the Estate system lets you build your custom properties directly into the open world. Something I haven’t used entirely, but I can imagine other players building crazy race tracks and upload it to Horizon CO-LAB.
This brings me to celebrate yet another feature called EventLab, which returns with a massive upgrade. You can build from anywhere on the map now, and up to 12 players can collaborate on a creation simultaneously. Pretty neat, right?
Sometimes I Just Want Tokyo Rain at 2 AM
Dynamic seasons make a return in Forza Horizon 6, and watching Japan shift through summer sun, autumn color, rain-soaked highways, and Hokkaido snowfall is stunning. It truly affects how the world drives and feels around you while you’re racing your Mitsubishi on the roads.
But here’s the thing that Playground Games has been dancing around for years: let players control time of day and weather in free roam in the open world.
Driving through Tokyo at 2 am during a rainstorm is exactly the kind of emotional experience I needed when a Radiohead song played through the radio. It truly would’ve elevated my driving experience more than driving around the same streets on sunny afternoons.
That control should have been in the player’s hands. Horizon 6b doesn’t go far enough here, and it’s a genuinely missed opportunity in a game that otherwise nails realistic immersion at every scale. Well, we can always hope for a DLC to sort this mess out.
Performance: Tokyo Drifts Were Fast and Furious in 160 FPS
Performance in Forza Horizon 6 was one of those things where I barely came across any hurdles. I ran the entire game on my RTX 4060Ti with DLSS Boost enabled and at high quality settings, of course, with ray tracing off, and the game sat comfortably at around 160 FPS on full HD. It is the kind of stability I came to expect from a Horizon game, and it made me forget framerate was even a thing.
My Setup:
CPU: Intel i7 14700K 3.40 GHz
CPU Cooler: CORSAIR H150 RGB 360mm
Motherboard: Msi Z790 Pro Wifi
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 4060 Ti 16GB
RAM: Crucial (2x16GB) 5200MHz DDR5
SSD: Kingston 3 TB NVMe SSD
Monitor: 1440p @ 160Hz
Crowded Tokyo streets, messy drag meets, heavy rain sequences – none of it broke a sweat. It just flew by like my Ferrari. However, once you flip ray tracing on, you’ll drop some frames as expected. But hovering around 120 FPS with full ray tracing in a world this massive is an impressive feat.
Even the 4K ultra settings delivered a steady 60 FPS, occasionally nudging toward 80 FPS depending upon the environment. And it looks extraordinary. Whether it’s a water reflection, shiny car surface, or tiny details like gravel or mud, all render cleanly without ever asking your GPU to apologize for it. This is one of the smoothest Horizon launches the series has had, and given its occasionally rocky PC history, that alone is worth celebrating.
Verdict: Forza Horizon 6 Makes Japan Impossible to Leave
Forza Horizon 6 is the best Horizon entry Playground Games has ever made. Japan was always the right answer, and the team delivered on that promise with a world that’s not just visually spectacular but culturally genuine.
The driving is the best as it has ever been in a Forza game. Progression finally feels worth striving for, and customization is absurdly deep. But most importantly, in an open-world driving game like this, exploration is consistently rewarded. Whether you’re chaining skills, exchanging paint with NPC cars, or threading the needle, your driving skill is recognized.
But is Forza Horizon 6 the perfect Horizon game? Not really. The time of day and weather restrictions are a frustrating holdover, and fixing that would push this from “excellent” to “untouchable.” But outside of that, Horizon 6 is the racing fantasy that fans have been waiting for.
Reviewed on PC
