Forza Horizon 6 heads to Japan with the series’ biggest map and a fresh start for players

Microsoft dropped new gameplay footage of Forza Horizon 6 yesterday, confirming what fans suspected since the Tokyo Game Show announcement: Japan isn’t just a backdrop, it’s the entire focus. The “Explore Japan” trailer shows Tokyo streets, Mount Fuji backdrops, and seasonal cherry blossoms in motion. After spending hundreds of hours in Mexico with Horizon 5, I’m genuinely excited to see Playground Games tackle dense urban racing again.

Tokyo takes center stage with five times the urban density

The new map dwarfs everything the series has attempted before. Playground Games built Tokyo at five times the scale of previous Horizon cities, splitting the metropolis into distinct zones: satellite towns, downtown districts, waterfront docks, and industrial areas. Each section has its own visual identity and presumably its own racing challenges. The trailer shows neon-lit Shibuya-style crossings, elevated highways weaving between skyscrapers, and tight alley shortcuts that look genuinely difficult to navigate at speed.

Beyond Tokyo, the map extends to Mount Fuji and surrounding regions including Kanto, Kansai, and Chubu. Here’s where expectations need some calibration, though. These outlying areas won’t match real-world geography or distances. Playground confirmed they’re compressing everything into a fictional layout, with Tokyo as the anchor point and rural Japan squeezed into surrounding zones. It’s the same approach they used for Britain in Horizon 4, where Edinburgh sat unrealistically close to the Lake District. Purists might grumble, but the tradeoff is variety without endless highway driving between locations.

What caught my attention is the density they’re promising. Previous Horizon maps felt empty outside scripted events. Mexico had gorgeous landscapes but long stretches of nothing between points of interest. Tokyo’s urban sprawl should fix that problem by design. Every block potentially becomes a race route, a drift zone, or a speed trap. If the AI traffic holds up under that density without tanking performance, this could finally deliver the street racing fantasy that earlier entries only hinted at.

550 cars at launch splits the difference between past entries

The car count landed at 550 vehicles for launch day. That number sits between Horizon 4’s massive 750-plus roster and Horizon 5’s leaner 500-car starting lineup. Playground Games clearly trimmed some fat rather than padding the garage with obscure variants nobody drives. I’d rather have 550 distinct vehicles than 700 cars where half are minor trim differences of the same model.

No official car list yet, but the trailer featured JDM icons prominently. Nissan GT-Rs, Toyota Supras, and what looked like a Mazda RX-7 FD drifting through an industrial zone. Given the Japan setting, expect heavy representation from Japanese manufacturers alongside the usual European and American exotics. The real question is licensing. Toyota only returned to racing games in 2019 after years of absence, and Japanese manufacturers can be protective about how their cars appear in games. Playground’s track record suggests they’ve secured the important stuff.

The drip-feed content model will almost certainly continue. Horizon 5 added over 200 cars post-launch through seasonal updates and expansions. Assume Horizon 6 follows the same pattern, with weekly reward cars and paid DLC packs bringing the eventual total well past 700.

Story mode gets a complete overhaul

Here’s the genuinely surprising change. Previous Horizon games dropped players into the action as established racing superstars, immediately welcomed into the festival. Forza Horizon 6 flips that setup. Players begin as regular tourists visiting Japan, not racers at all. The story follows your character earning festival credentials from scratch, gradually proving themselves worthy of participation.

Whether Playground executes this well remains uncertain. Racing game stories tend toward cringe-worthy dialogue. But a tourist-to-champion arc at least offers hooks for meaningful progression: first illegal street race, first festival invite, first championship win.

Forza Horizon 6 brings seasons back with a Japanese twist. The trailer showed cherry blossom petals drifting across windshields in spring, red maple leaves carpeting mountain roads in autumn, and snow blanketing Mount Fuji’s slopes in winter. The seasonal cycle system presumably works like Horizon 4, with the entire server rotating through seasons on a weekly schedule. Seasonal championships, exclusive rewards, and limited-time events should return alongside it.

Forza Horizon 6 Japan: your questions answered

Sources: YouTube