The global tour continues. After racing through Mexico, Forza Horizon 6 is now headed to Japan, a “highly requested destination” as the Horizon Festival gets ready for a new adventure. Announced at the Xbox Tokyo Game Show back in September, Forza Horizon 6 will drop players into a reimagined Tokyo that promises to bring together Japan’s natural scenery with its dense, metropolitan vibrancy. Besides the new location, Playground Games is also putting a great deal of focus on showcasing what Japan has to offer, “whether it be how neighborhoods sound, even what a sign color communicates about a shop.” So if you want the latest on everything revealed so far, from the release date to trailers, gameplay details, and everything teased so far, here’s what we know right now about Forza Horizon 6.
Forza Horizon 6: Release Date
While there isn’t an official release date yet, Playground Games has confirmed that Forza Horizon 6 will be out sometime “early next year,” which (sort of) puts the game’s launch in first-half-of-2026 territory. As for platforms, it will land on Xbox Series X and S, as well as PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam. The upcoming racing game will also be available with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass at launch, with a PlayStation 5 version planned for “post-launch.”
Forza Horizon 6: Setting
Like the previous entries in the franchise, Forza Horizon 6 is shifting the Horizon Festival to a new location, which the developers claim is the series’ most “highly requested destination.” Per the official developer blog, “In Forza Horizon 6, you will get to discover a scenic and breathtaking Japan, where you will build up your racing status to become a Legend at the Horizon Festival.” The open-world map will be built around a reimagined Tokyo as the main metropolis, surrounded by a wide mix of Japan’s natural and urban landscapes. And Playground Games said that they spent a lot of time making sure this version of Japan feels authentic rather than just visually appealing.
In a September Xbox Wire blog, the developers revealed that they have been working closely with cultural consultants and carrying out research trips across the country to capture the subtle details, such as the ambience of a local train station, the way a street sounds at dusk, the general look of everyday storefronts, and the lived-in energy that connects old and new Japan on every block. The team wants Forza Horizon 6’s world to feel vibrant, complex, and instantly recognisable, while still offering players the series’ trademark open-world playground.
To that end, the devs brought in cultural consultant Kyoko Yamashita, a lifelong car enthusiast, to help shape the team’s approach from early development. “Japan is widely loved, but it can also be widely misread when you only see it from afar,” explained Yamashita. “The team wanted to present more than a postcard or a backdrop; they wanted a lived-in world. Having a cultural consultant early helps you make a thousand small, respectful decisions: how neighborhoods sound, even what a sign color communicates about a shop. Those small choices add up to credibility and help avoid stereotypes, while also making it a truly immersive experience for players.”
What Else Can We Expect From Forza Horizon 6?
Apart from Japan serving as the main backdrop for all the action, Forza Horizon 6 will also feature an exciting roster of cars (duh) influenced by Japanese culture. While the developers have yet to reveal the full list of cars we’ll get to drive, they did mention that choosing Japan as the setting opens the door for a lineup inspired by the country’s deep automotive history and culture. Playground Games’ Art Director Don Arceta teased that the upcoming game will follow in the footsteps of Forza Horizon 5 by presenting an eclectic array of cars players already know and love, while also bringing in Japan’s unique car culture for players to learn more about.
“In Japanese car culture, the depth and diversity is astonishing,” said Yamashita. “Kei cars and vans with cult followings, precision motorsport, drifting’s roots, and their passion for customization really stands out. It’s welcoming to different levels of enthusiasm and knowledge, which is exactly the kind of layered world I want players to feel.”
Similar to past entries, Forza Horizon 6’s open world will change as you play, with true-to-life seasons that fundamentally alter the setting around you. As you might know, Japan features some of the most well-known, beautiful seasonal changes in the world, from sweltering summers and snowy winters to, of course, the iconic sakura season, when cherry blossoms bloom across the country.
More importantly, seasonal changes in Forza Horizon 6 won’t just be about how the game looks, but also how it feels. “The team has also been able to build a system where seasonal changes truly inform the world – how spring, summer, autumn, and winter subtly shift tone, activity, and sound,” Yamashita stated in the Xbox Wire blog. “The team is also really proud of the attention to everyday details: ambient audio like station chimes or summer wind bells that instantly place you without a caption. Those are quiet choices, but they carry a lot of truth.”
We haven’t seen any raw gameplay footage yet, but the devs did share a few interesting details during an interview with GamesRadar+. For starters, Forza Horizon 6 promises the series’ biggest map to date with its version of Japan. Art Director Don Arceta described the country as “full of contrasts,” adding that the team wants to create “new driving experiences that capture the location,” mentioning everything from busy city streets to mountain roads and vast open plains.
“We never set out to make a location one-to-one,” Arceta told GamesRadar+. “It’s always capturing the spirit of the location, and trying to do that in an authentic way and obviously a respectful way. We use a lot of real life data as much as we can to build our world; so a lot of satellite data for the terrain, we take a lot of 3D scans of objects actually on location, a lot of reference photography. We capture skies. So, you know, there’s a lot there that we take”.
The map is said to be both big and dense, with surprises around every corner, meaning that there’ll be plenty of events, activities, and races to take part in. Tokyo will be one of the primary locations, and Arceta characterizing it as “complex and layered,” claiming it is the most ambitious city Playground has built for the series. He further pointed out that the game’s elevated roadways were developed using technology from the Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels expansion, adding that it will offer “something new and fresh.”
“Japan’s a breathtaking location, but I think they’ll be surprised just how much more of the culture we’ve tried to integrate into Horizon 6 outside of just the location,” Arceta added. “So obviously there’s car culture, but there’s different festivals and other cultural aspects that we actually wanted to inject a lot more into this game. I think we kind of dipped our toe in that a bit with Horizon 5. But working closely with Kyoko, I think people will be surprised; they’ll probably learn a bit more about this location than they might expect.”
Is there a trailer for Forza Horizon 6
Yes, there’s a trailer for Forza Horizon 6, which was shown off back in September during Tokyo Game Show 2025 alongside the first gameplay details. The just over a minute teaser doesn’t reveal anything substantial about the cars or gameplay, but it does show a series of license plates of all the featured locations from past games. We get to see license plates for places like Colorado, which was the setting of the original Forza Horizon, all the way through to Mexico from Forza Horizon 5. The trailer then ends with a wide shot over Mount Fuji before confirming Japan as the new setting for Forza Horizon 6.
And that’s about everything we currently know about Forza Horizon 6. For more gaming news and guides, make sure to check out our gaming section!
