45 Mins In: Forza Horizon 6

Deja vu but this time, it’s better

When Forza 6 was announced last fall, it immediately jumped to my list of most anticipated games for 2026. An open world racing game set in Japan?! What’s not to be excited about?! At this point, Forza has already mastered its formula. It’s just a matter of picking the right destinations for players to coast in and, of course, they nailed it with Japan.

Before diving into the gameplay, Forza welcomes you with a ton of settings that you can customize upon launch, similar to how things kick off in Forza 5 for those familiar with that title. The amount of accessibility options is impressive. Screen readers, in-depth subtitle keyword and background opacity color options, the ability to change the menu backgrounds, stop the background from moving, adjust text size, and more. Most games don’t come close to having all of these accessibility options. It’s clear that accessibility was a priority here, and that makes sense because more people being able to enjoy a game is always a good thing. Smart move.

You’ll also find the option to prioritize either graphic fidelity or FPS performance. If you prefer graphics over everything, then you’ll want to enable graphic fidelity, but if you’re like myself then you’ll prioritize frames per second, which makes the game buttery smooth as you’re coasting through the streets of Japan.

After getting your settings all sorted, you’ll customize your character shortly after a brief intro. This part feels familiar to anyone who played Forza 5 and that’s ok, because the character customization options were already solid. You’re essentially greeted with several stock avatars that you can further adjust through body type, hairstyles, skin tones, and more. The customization options are surprisingly robust and offer a wide variety of appearances. Some games’ character customization feels very cookie-cutter and lacks inspiration (I’m looking at you Final Fantasy XIV).

Surprisingly, you don’t have an option to pick a name at this point, but later on you’ll have that option. From a list that easily looked like it was over a hundred names, the game’s narrator will actually say your character’s name while you’re browsing your cars and in other parts of the menu. Nice touch.

Finally, the last thing when it comes to character customization goes back to my earlier point about inclusiveness. You have the option to give your character prosthetics such as arms and legs, along with hearing aids. These additions really help the character creator feel more thoughtful. What’s especially impressive is that they aren’t just generic options either. You can customize their colors and choose between different models, which is super unexpected but a nice touch.

Digging through all these settings while trying to make the perfect character I don’t mind seeing in the cutscenes probably ate up more than half of my “45 Mins In” time limit that I allocated for checking out Forza 6. No worries if you’re reading this and feeling a bit on edge because that’s all skippable, and on top of that, you can always change your character’s appearance, name, and just about everything else later in the game at any time. So feel free to dive right into Forza to experience the gameplay if you decide to check it out for yourself.

That said, let’s talk about the gameplay. Forza is probably one of the few driving games that I don’t mind switching to the driver’s view, or in other words, the view that resembles actually driving. The steering, the scenery, and the cockpit view all feel exceptionally real. If you’re not into using that camera angle then you’re in luck too because the scenery, which is more visible from an over-the-car camera angle, is very poetic and captures all the work the designers did to make the world come to life.

As you’re racing through the streets, you’ll fly past the famous Shibuya Scramble. As you look along the horizon, you’ll see Mount Fuji. And most importantly, as you go too fast, you’ll likely spin out of control a few times and crash into the woods. This is where one of Forza’s best gameplay features kicks in: the rewind.

At any point while you’re driving, you can press the rewind button and Forza will stop your car in its tracks, letting you rewind up to your spectacular burnout moment. So if you’re a terrible driver like me, then this feature will come in handy throughout your playthrough. The good news is that you’re able to use this feature during missions, so if you’re a casual player and want to make progress through the story at your own leisure then you don’t have to worry about perfecting anything. You can just rely on the rewind button for those moments when you goof hitting that sharp corner at 150 mph in your Mercedes-AMG One.

Another feature that you’ll likely get lost in is the camera mode. If you’re a fan of in-game camera modes then Forza 6 does not disappoint. You can save presets of all your favorite settings such as shutter speed, exposure, time of day, weather, and so much more. This feature is also taken pretty seriously for those that want a challenge, as there appears to be a grading system that ranks how good your captures were.

I found it pretty humbling because I took what I thought was a pretty solid photo, but the Forza 6 photo ranking engine thought otherwise and gave my picture a 1 out of 5 stars. With the world map being massive, I could easily see myself spending hours on end trying to get that perfect 5-star photo.

Besides the vast amount of locations you’ll be able to photograph, there is a massive amount of vehicles that you’ll be able to photograph as well. That’s where things start to feel a bit overwhelming. After about 45 minutes, I owned five cars. When I took a look at the Autoshow, which I’m assuming is the store for vehicles, there had to be over a hundred cars spread across twenty-plus brands.

I could just keep tapping the “next” button for 30 seconds and still be surfing through cars. On top of that, there is an auction house where you can bid on cars, and then there seem to be car packs that unlock even more vehicles. Then there was a Car Pass and a Car Vouchers section.

For the most part, every car I clicked on appeared purchasable via the in-game currency, but there were areas that prompted me for $59.99 like the Forza Horizon 6 Premium Upgrade Bundle, and $4.99 for the Forza Horizon 6 Welcome Pack. The game already seems packed with vehicles, but if you’re somehow not satisfied with everything available through in-game currency, there are even more available as DLC.

That’s it for now as this 45-minute take has definitely started to creep into hour territory, and for good reason. Forza 6 has a tremendous amount of content that’ll keep you busy as you cruise around Japan. From all the side quests you’ll stumble across simply by driving around to all the car customizations, this game is jam packed with content.

There are definitely parts that’ll feel familiar to longtime Forza players, but Forza 6 manages to further refine a formula that was already working while making Japan one of the series’ most memorable settings.

Forza 6 is currently available on Xbox, PC, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and it’ll be releasing on PlayStation 5 later this year. It’s also available through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, so if you’re a subscriber then consider checking it out if you’re into racing games.