The new edition in the Forza Horizon series of games will probably be released in the second half of 2026. After months (even years) of speculation, guesswork and community feedback, it’s finally happening: Forza Horizon 6 will take place in Japan, home to some of the most iconic and memorable cars in history. Until then, we’ll see plenty of predictions and expectations.
So, what do we expect from Forza Horizon 6?
Ever since the first Forza Horizon, which was launched more than a decade ago, the fans were asking for Japan as the next location. Playground Games, the creators of the Forza series, instead took us all around the world, from Europe and Australia to the UK and Mexico, seemingly ignoring the thousands of comments asking for Japan. Well, next year we’ll finally get it. The team has actually shared in interviews that Japan was high on the list of locations since the very first game, but that they are only just now able to “do it justice”. That does sound good.
We expect a map of Japan with all of the best things the country has to offer. The announcement video (watch below) has already shown glimpses of Mount Fuji, the country’s most iconic mountain, but we demand more: from big cities with narrow streets to open plains and mountain drives, Japan has it all, and we want to be able to experience it.
Conversations with Playground representatives also confirmed Tokyo will be featured, but rather than featuring the exact replica of the city, Playground will probably take some of the most well-known landmarks and work more towards presenting the “vibe” of the city, rather than emulating it.
Forza Horizon 6 – Official Teaser Trailer | Tokyo Game Show 2025
Games like Japanese Drift Master do a great job of putting us in a slice of Japan, with cherry blossoms, B-roads, plenty of sweeping bends and curves, and we are anxious to see how Playground’s Tokyo (and its countryside) will look.
Playground also confirmed that the map is going to be the biggest and fullest Horizon map ever, which means more roads to drive, and more things to do besides just cruising. We’ll keep an eye out for those.
Forza Horizon always had a thing for showcasing the local car brands, be it the Morgans and Jaguars in the UK or the high-performance utes in Australia or customised VW Beetles in Mexico. However, Japan arguably has the most to offer on the car front, and we’re itching to see it all. Of course, the previous games in the series had a lot of Japanese cars, but we’re more interested in the likes of Lancer Evo wagons, the Stageas or Crowns, and even the late 70s US-inspired wagons and boxy large cruisers. Oh, and did we mention the kei cars like the Suzuki Cappuccino and the Autozam AZ-1?
We’d like to see more unique and weird cars make it to the game outside of the regular Skylines, the RX-7’s and the Civics. Although very popular overseas, and responsible for putting Japan on the map as a car-friendly nation, there’s so much more to see there that it’d be a shame not to include some of the other, JDM models that might not be as popular outside Japan. Personally, I’d like to see some older Japanese sports cars such as the Toyota Sports 800, Mitsubishi Starion or the first-generation MR-2, to name a few.
Horizon 5 has had its fair share of JDM cars, with the DLCs including the likes of the Nissan Stagea RS Four and Toyota Sera, as well as an entire pack of weird Nissan cars.
Horizon 5 brought us some JDM icons, but Horizon 6 needs to do more. (Credit: Playground Games)
Japan as a country is a peculiar combination of old-school and high-tech, which is translated to its love of cars. This was especially apparent in the 90s, when Japan had some of the most ambitious and high-tech cars in the world, such as the Mitsubishi 3000GT, the Nissan 300ZX and the Subaru SVX. We’d like to see more of this crossover in the game’s world as well.
Japanese car culture is unique, and the country has dozens of shops that still do things the old-fashioned way, with RAUH-Welt BEGRIFF (RWB) perhaps being the most well-known one. Its creator, Akira Nakai, is a secluded expert in fabricating body panels to create wide-body Porsches without any Western influence, and some of its body shops, such as Varis, create masterpieces for dozens of brands and models.
This vibe should definitely make it into the game, and we should be able to explore the deep end of the car culture in Japan, much in the same way that Horizon 5 had story lines with real-world brands such as Donut Media, but also stories about unique aspects of the Mexican car culture.
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Of course, Touge needs to be in the game from day one, and not locked behind a DLC. The unique form of racing, popularised by anime series Initial D, and later (in spirit) by games such as Need for Speed: Carbon, is a form of canyon racing invented in Japan.
While not as popular today as before, Touge is still tied to the Japanese car culture, and it can’t really be separated. This would also mean that the map will have to feature many more winding roads focused on drifting than previous games, but we’re okay with that.
On the other side of the coin, we have high-speed street races on the Tokyo ring road, a popular and illegal practice in the 80s and 90s. Because Forza Horizon does have a street racing mode, the only fair thing to do is to expand it and offer a slice of the underground street racing clubs that Japan is known for. If you’re itching to see what this looks like, I advise trying out Tokyo Xtreme Racer, a great street racing game focused only on street racing on the Tokyo highways.
Japan’s weather is both calm and insane at the same time, and it’s one of the few countries that can really brag about a very unique combination of climate conditions at work. This also means that we should be able to experience them all: from incredibly thick snow in the mountains to the monsoon rains that can affect handling more than regular rainfall, to spring roads full of cherry blossom leaves.
Japan is interesting, weird and colourful, and we’d like to see more of that in the game. Horizon 4’s seasons system was both praised and criticised in its time, but it did bring a very interesting dynamic to the game
Forza Horizon’s reputation is mostly good, and despite some fans’ critique of the game mechanics and some elements, the series as a whole is still one of the best driving experiences on PC and console. This means that there are some things we’d hate to see in the new edition, the first one being a shallow approach to Japan.
With the hype and expectations building up for so long, Playground really has its work cut out for them. Both casual driving sim fans and Horizon veterans are anxious to see what Playground will do with Japan, and whether it lives up to the expectations. For this to work, the game needs to hit all the basics and get the overall vibe and car culture of Japan just right, with enough detail, atmosphere and deep cuts to keep things interesting.
Personally, I’d like a bit more realism in the game, since Forza Horizon did angle itself much more towards the absurd in recent memory. Rather than having dozens of 1000HP electric cars that are broken from the start of the game, I’d like for the game to have a more technical, slower pace. Still, I know that’s just wishful thinking in 2025.
Featured image: Playground Games
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