Forza Horizon 6 Shows Where The Series Needs To Go Next

Published May 15, 2026, 7:00 AM EDT Kyle Gratton is an editor and writer based out of Kansas City. He received a bachelor's degree, dual majoring in English and History with a minor in Film and Media Studies, and has been a senior staff writer and reviewer for Screen Rant's Gaming section since 2021, with roles in editorial, and various freelance projects. A terminal Midwesterner who graduated from the University of Kansas, Kyle also has knowledge and interest in literature, film, film adaptions of literature, and history. Find Kyle on Bluesky: kwg.bsky.social and Letterboxd: KyleG5 Sign in to your ScreenRant account Forza Horizon 6 doesn't really innovate, but that's largely due to the series hitting its stride early on. Playground Games has stuck with what works, but the sixth installment of the Forza Motorsport spin-off series does have a notable new development in its recreation of Tokyo, the largest urban sprawl in Horizon history. It's a richly detailed city, but Forza Horizon 6's breadth arguably doesn't let it reach its potential. Races through the Tokyo City region are a distinct highlight, and the food delivery challenges are a great side gag, but Forza Horizon 6's map contains so much more than the city that it tends to feel small regardless of its impressive square footage. There's too much fun to be had in tracking down Barn Finds and rally racing, so Horizon should never go fully urban, but FH6 does demonstrate there's a prime opportunity for Forza to branch out. Forza Could Make An Incredible Street Racing Game The care that Playground Games (and Turn 10 Studios) puts into creating its open-world maps and virtual cities could be perfectly leveraged to create a classic street racing game à la Need for Speed: Underground. Street racing is already an event type in Forza Horizon 6 and preceding games, taking place at night and with civilian traffic still on the roads, but it doesn't always mesh well with the series' trademark Horizon Festival. Earlier entries played this up by making street racing events unsanctioned by the festival, but they've since blended into the normal slate of content. Despite street racing's ongoing inclusion, Forza at large hasn't really honed in on this specific racing subculture, but it has a strong grasp on all the requisite elements. A dense city like Tokyo was merely the last piece – Forza Horizon already has wonderful driving physics, a huge roster of cars, and an impressive livery editor. In fact, Forza Horizon 6's touge events – literal translation, mountain pass; a downhill racing style that originated in Japan – are reminiscent of Need for Speed: Carbon's climactic showdowns, which are themselves inspired by touge. Forza already consistently dazzles visually, so it would be interesting to see what the developers can do entirely focused on creating a city and some surrounding environments. Forza Needs New Ideas Now That Motorsport Is Seemingly Shelved Forza Horizon seems to only be growing more popular since the series started coming to PlayStation, but is now set in its ways – FH6 is very similar to Forza Horizon 5. The issue could only be exacerbated by the fact that the original Forza Motorsport branch appears to be on ice after Turn 10 Studios was affected by the mass layoffs at Microsoft last year. Forza at large could benefit from trying something new. Oddly enough, Forza has tried a street racing game before. Developed by Electric Square and originally released as Miami Street in 2018, the game was rebranded a year later to Forza Street. It's definitely not the Forza we know and love, though; its controls are simplified to an extent where all you do is control braking and acceleration. Forza's fundamentals in the Horizon and Motorsport lineages are so solid, though, that the potential for making another street racing game is plain to see. Scaling down to an urban map could also be more manageable for a development team that's had its workforce reduced like Turn 10. A smaller, more focused game could be exactly what Forza needs, and Horizon itself started out fairly quaint when compared to the newer releases. Forza Horizon 6 doesn't really put its Tokyo City region through its paces, but it's impressively created nonetheless, and shows that there's definitely room for the franchise to make a full street racing game. Systems Released May 19, 2026 ESRB Everyone / Mild Lyrics, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases Developer(s) Playground Games Publisher(s) Xbox Game Studios Multiplayer Online Multiplayer Genre(s) Racing, Open-World