Forza Horizon 6 shifts the festival to Japan, with a launch targeted for H1 2026. Explore Tokyo, coasts and mountain passes; PC, Xbox confirmed, PS5 likely.
© A. Krivonosov
According to noted insider Nate the Hate, Playground Games is aiming to launch Forza Horizon 6 in the first half of 2026, setting the stage for the next entry in one of racing’s biggest franchises.
The Tokyo Game Show 2025 announcement was among the event’s standout moments: Forza Horizon 6 shifts the festival to Japan, a setting fans have been asking for for years. Yet the latest leak points to a shake-up in the series’ usual fall release window. Traditionally, Horizon games have arrived between September and November, but this time the studio appears keen to avoid colliding with what’s being billed as the decade’s loudest release. Rockstar has moved Grand Theft Auto VI to November 19, 2026, and many teams are steering clear. Different genres or not, competing for attention alongside GTA is a risky play—even for blockbuster AAA projects.
If the first-half-of-2026 timeline holds, the gap between entries would stretch to a record four and a half years. The series has grown sharply in that span: by July 2024, Forza Horizon 5 had drawn more than 40 million players, and then even turned into a hit on PlayStation 5, briefly outpacing some of Sony’s own exclusives.
As for the game itself, a few key details are confirmed. The map centers on three major regions: Tokyo’s dense, vertical cityscape, sweeping coastal areas, and winding mountain passes. The developers are focusing on a tightly packed world, multilevel routes, and race types synonymous with Japan—urban street events, mountain drifting, and high-speed coastal runs. The campaign structure heads back to the spirit of the first game: players start with humble cars and gradually unlock faster classes.
The garage will lean into Japanese automotive culture, adding kei cars, kei vans, and numerous models rarely seen in Western titles. The team says the open world is designed to impress fans by blending the beauty of Japanese landscapes with technical upgrades to the engine.
Forza Horizon 6 is officially confirmed for PC and Xbox Series X|S. Given Horizon 5’s performance on PS5, a PlayStation 5 version seems all but inevitable—the only open question is whether it lands toward the end of 2026 or slips into 2027.