Forza Horizon 6 Launch: Review Scores, Early Access Chaos, and What's Coming Next

It's out. After the longest gap between entries in Horizon series history, Playground Games has delivered Forza Horizon 6 to Xbox Series X|S and PC. The setting is Japan the single most requested location from the community for years and the early verdict, from both critics and the players who paid $120 to get in four days early, is that the wait was worth it.

That said, launch week was not without incident. Steam reviews tanked briefly on day one of early access, a pre-launch file encryption mistake accidentally let anyone play the game nine days before release, and some early players arrived with concerns about AI drivers and the length of the campaign. The game recovered quickly on all fronts, but there's a lot to unpack from the past week and a DLC roadmap that's already drawing community scrutiny.

Launch Dates and Editions

Forza Horizon 6 launched in two waves:

Three editions were available: Standard (base game only), Deluxe (adds Car Pass and Welcome Pack), and Premium at $119.99 (adds early access, two post-launch expansions, VIP Membership, the Time Attack Car Pack, Italian Passion Car Pack, and the Car Pass). A Premium Upgrade for $59.99 lets Standard or Game Pass players add all those extras without buying the full Premium Edition again.

One other thing worth knowing for the Game Pass crowd: the Standard Edition is included, but early access is not. The Premium Upgrade, which does include early access, had to be purchased separately. That distinction quietly irritated a segment of the community in the run-up to launch.

Early Access: Records and a Rocky First Night

The early access period produced numbers the franchise has never seen. On Steam alone, Forza Horizon 6 hit a concurrent player peak of 178,009 during the May 15 early access window more than double Forza Horizon 5's all-time Steam peak of 81,096, set back in 2021. Every single one of those players had paid $120 for the Premium Edition. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma confirmed it was the most-played early access in the Horizon series' history.

Then the reviews started coming in, and for about twelve hours, things looked bad.

Steam reviews hit "Mixed" on the first day of early access. The complaints were mostly technical: server lag, memory leaks, and a prompt requiring players to download an updated version of the game. The bulk of negative reviews came from Chinese players who cited connectivity issues specific to their region. This wasn't a reflection of the game's quality it was a launch infrastructure problem and reviews recovered to "Very Positive" at 83% within 48 hours once Playground pushed a patch.

There was also the pre-launch leak to deal with. On May 10 nine days before launch and five days before early access it emerged that the 155GB Steam preload files had been accidentally left unencrypted. Normally those files would be locked until launch, but players could run the game freely. Playground's response was immediate and somewhat theatrical: the developer handed out IP bans set to expire on December 31, 9999. The bans were later reversed, but the message was received.

Review Scores

A 91 on OpenCritic makes Forza Horizon 6 the fourth consecutive Horizon game to score 91 or above a run that includes Horizon 3, 4, 5, and now 6. The 92 on Metacritic makes it the highest-rated game of 2026 at the time of launch, overtaking Pokémon Pokopia (90) and Resident Evil Requiem. TheGamer and Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb both awarded it a perfect 5/5. GameRant gave it 4.5/5.

What Critics Said

The map is getting its own fan club. Across reviews from IGN, GamingBolt, Gameranx, and others, Japan was singled out as the best Horizon map in the series' history. The mix of Tokyo's tight urban streets, elevated highway loops, mountain touge roads, and coastal sections gives the driving a variety that Mexico in FH5 never quite managed. Digital Foundry's John praised the world design but noted one specific concern the roads, while beautiful, feel sparse on traffic. Wider city streets with minimal other cars is something the community flagged after the first gameplay reveal, and it wasn't entirely resolved at launch.

The driving model is the best it's been. Improved front-end grip, refined controller feedback, and better-balanced handling across all classes got consistent praise. The new R Class for track-focused cars was cited as a welcome addition.

Progression works better this time. The wristband system returning from the original Forza Horizon earning wristbands by completing races to unlock faster cars and new areas was seen as a cleaner structure than FH5's more scattered approach. Legend Island as a late-game reward area gave reviewers something to look forward to in the long run.

The one consistent criticism: Forza Horizon 6 doesn't reinvent anything. Showcase events, Seasonal Playlists, Auction Houses it's the same franchise infrastructure, refined. For longtime fans, that's enough. For anyone hoping the Japan setting would come with a structural overhaul, the game is exactly what it's always been, just in a much better location.

Community Reaction

Player sentiment in the Steam reviews and community forums was overwhelmingly positive once the launch-night server issues passed. A few threads from the early access period:

One widely-upvoted Steam review described the experience as "drifting down random mountain roads, photographing my R32 GT-R at a shrine while Horizon XS blasts Linkin Park, or just hanging around Daikoku PA with some random dudes" calling it "the greatest Forza EVER made." The soundtrack, which combines Marshall Jefferson, BABYMETAL, Linkin Park, and Yellow Magic Orchestra, was a recurring talking point.

More measured voices pointed to AI behaviour as unresolved. One detailed review noted that while AI cars no longer race exclusively in single file, they "remain pretty brain-dead" still capable of brake-checking the player, still easy to push around. The comparison drawn was to Forza Motorsport 2023's track AI, which is not flattering. Cross-country racing also took predictable fire as the weakest event type in the game, a tradition that has now survived six entries.

Campaign length came up on forums, with some early players flagging that a Gold Wristband was achievable within 27-28 hours. For a Horizon game, that isn't necessarily short but players used to sprawling main stories in other open-world titles noticed it. The general consensus was that the content depth comes from exploring and the live service layers, not a lengthy linear campaign.

One widely-shared concern predating launch: Ferrari's presence in the game feels limited. Forza has had notable licensing gaps in the past, and the community flagged this before early access even opened.

DLC Roadmap: Car Pass, Expansions, and the Rumours

Forza Horizon 6's post-launch content plan follows the series template established across the previous five games, with a few wrinkles worth knowing about.

Car Pass

The Car Pass is included with the Deluxe and Premium Editions and available separately. It delivers 30 cars in weekly drops starting May 19, one car per Tuesday, with the final drop landing around December 8, 2026. The pass also includes a bundled Formula Drift pack of 8 cars. Based on previous Car Pass pricing in the series, buying all that content individually would cost noticeably more than the pass itself.

Expansions

Two full paid expansions are confirmed for post-launch release. Both are included with the Premium Edition. Each will introduce a new location, new vehicles, and new gameplay modes following the same model as FH4's Fortune Island and FH5's Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure packs. No dates or locations have been announced yet.

Additional Car Packs

The Time Attack Car Pack (8 cars) was available on launch day. The Italian Passion Car Pack (4 Italian cars) follows post-launch. Both are included with the Premium Edition and will be sold separately.

What's Been Removed - and What That Means

One notable change from FH5: the Forzathon Points system and its dedicated shop have been removed from Forza Horizon 6. In FH5, Forzathon Points were earned through weekly Forzathon Live events and spent in a rotating shop of cosmetics and cars. The removal was confirmed by community content creators a few weeks before launch and has been generally welcomed the Forzathon shop's time-limited nature created a FOMO cycle that some players found more stressful than fun. Playground has not detailed what, if anything, replaces it.

On microtransactions more broadly: multiple reviewers, including The Outerhaven, specifically called out the absence of real-money transactions in the in-game economy. All credits are earned through gameplay. That said, the premium DLC structure two paid expansions, a Car Pass, multiple car packs means the full Forza Horizon 6 experience carries a meaningful price tag for anyone not on Game Pass.

The Rumour Section: Read With Appropriate Scepticism

Community speculation around Forza Horizon 6's future monetisation has been circulating since before launch, and it's worth separating what's confirmed from what isn't.

The most persistent rumour involves a potential purchasable in-game currency essentially a Credits top-up option added to the Horizon store at some point post-launch. Nothing of the sort was present at launch, and Playground has made no announcement. This type of rumour surfaces at every major Forza launch; it hasn't materialised in the Horizon series to date, though Forza Motorsport 6 (the sim-racing title from 2015, not this game) did briefly introduce a Token currency that was later removed after community backlash. Whether that history informs the current rumours is unclear.

There's also community discussion about whether DLC content from FH4 and FH5 specifically the Hot Wheels expansions and Rally Adventure pack from FH5 could appear in some form within FH6's content roadmap. Playground confirmed that players with previous Forza Horizon entries linked to their Gamertag can claim certain legacy cars (the FH5 Mercedes-AMG One, FH4 Aston Martin Vulcan, FH3 Lamborghini Centenario) as free rewards. Whether that goodwill extends to re-releasing expansion content from older games as purchasable DLC is speculation, not announcement.

What is confirmed: two expansions are coming, a Car Pass runs through December, and the game has no real-money microtransactions at launch. Everything beyond that is a rumour until Playground says otherwise.