Turning Japanese

Forza Horizon 6

It was a long time coming, but Playground Games has finally delivered a Forza Horizon set in Japan. After years of fans begging for neon-lit streets, winding mountain passes and cherry blossom-lined highways, the studio has gone and built what feels like a compressed tourist fantasy of the entire country. Somehow it works brilliantly.

After playing so many Forza Horizon games, you begin to expect the formula. You know there will be gorgeous cars, a giant open world and enough races to make your social life crumble into dust. Yet unlike annual franchises that merely reshuffle menus and slap a new number on the box, Forza Horizon 6 still feels exciting. Playground Games understands something many racing developers do not. Cars are only half the fantasy. The other half is the world where you are driving one.

Japan is easily the best setting the series has ever had. One minute you are drifting through narrow mountain roads inspired by touge culture and Initial D fantasies. The next you are blasting through crowded city streets glowing with neon signs and vending machines every three metres like some fever dream holiday through Tokyo. Then suddenly the game throws you into snowy mountain roads that look like they escaped from a Subaru commercial.

The map is dense without yet uncluttered. Every area feels handcrafted to encourage reckless driving and stupidly fun experimentation. There are bamboo forests, sleepy fishing villages, sprawling highways and countryside roads that practically beg you to oversteer a Nissan Skyline into a guard rail at 180 kilometres an hour.

Visually, this may be the best-looking racing game ever made. The weather effects are ridiculous. Rain gathers naturally on the road surface while reflections from city lights bounce across puddles in ways that make you stop mid-race just to stare at the scenery. Autumn transforms entire sections of the map into glowing orange postcards while spring drenches everything in endless Sakura blossoms. It is almost offensively pretty at times.

Thankfully, the driving still feels excellent. Horizon continues to walk the fine line between simulation and arcade racer better than almost anyone else. You can spend hours tuning suspension setups and tyre pressure if you are the kind of person who uses words like "understeer" in normal conversation. Or you can simply grab a ridiculous hypercar and launch yourself off a mountain while listening to synthwave. Both approaches work. Did I mention you race a mecha? Yep Gundam fantasies are also realised.

The car list is massive and gloriously indulgent; I believe there are over 500 cars to begin with. Japanese car culture finally gets the spotlight it deserves with everything from tiny kei cars to heavily modified drift monsters and legendary JDM classics. Naturally, there are still Ferraris, Lamborghinis and enough Porsches to fill a luxury parking lot in Dubai, but the real stars here are the Japanese icons. Sliding an old RX-7 through wet mountain roads feels spiritually correct.

The online features are also stronger this time around. Convoys are easier to manage, events flow better and the seasonal activities remain dangerously addictive. There is always something distracting you from whatever race you intended to do next. I booted the game up intending to test one car and somehow lost four hours photographing a Honda NSX near a shrine.

Not everything is perfect though. The story mode is painfully forgettable. Horizon has always struggled with this because nobody boots up a racing game hoping for emotional depth and Oscar-worthy dialogue. Still, the attempts at creating quirky festival characters and motivational nonsense feel even flatter this time around. Every time the game dragged me back into story conversations, I just wanted it to shut up and let me drive.

It also occasionally plays things a little too safe. The Horizon formula is so polished now that it rarely surprises outside the setting itself. You know exactly how progression works within the first hour. Fortunately, the core gameplay is so ridiculously fun that it barely matters.

Forza Horizon 6 is pure joy wrapped in carbon fibre and cherry blossoms. It understands the fantasy of driving better than almost any racing game on the market. Playground Games finally gave fans the Japanese Horizon experience they have been demanding for years and somehow exceeded expectations.

If you are looking for your next racing addiction, this is it. Buy Forza Horizon 6 immediately. For anyone with a Game Pass subscription, the game is available from day one, which honestly feels criminal considering how much fun is packed into this thing. This game would have been a 6 out of 5 but I am taking a point off for the poor story.

Forza Horizon 6
Rating: 5/5
Developer: Playground Games
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Platform: XBS, PC
Price: Rs 5,499