I’ve driven over 10,000 miles in Forza Horizon 6, and can confirm it is a dream game for car lovers

Car culture — something that a lot of games try to nail, but never really quite get the feel of it.

It’s not about features, gameplay, graphics or sound alone. It’s about merging all of these in a way that becomes a genuine love letter to the automobiles. From big moments like grand races or drifts down mountainous Japanese roads, all the way down to the tiniest details like showing your motor at a car meet or the roar of your V8 engine echoing off tunnel walls, every little thing matters.

And like I said, every game I play comes close but no cigar… Until I played Forza Horizon 6 — a truly seamless, accessible celebration of real-world car enthusiasm and easily the best racing game I’ve played in years.

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Now let me be abundantly clear: 5 stars does not mean perfection. There’s no such thing as a perfect game. Online multiplayer may still get you some frustrating moments of being used like a glorified wall buffer for other competitors, which the penalty system can sometimes miss in competitive racing.

But make no mistake about it, if you’re a regular racer at heart or someone who’s caught the bug and wants to experience it, there’s nothing more all-encompassing than this. Japan is truly a joy to drive and the pulse of this culture pumps hard in a way you won’t feel in any other sim racer.

Yes, I know that’s a little controversial of me — a sim racer — to say, as the Forza Horizon series definitely leans more towards the arcade than the hardcore (though there is the versatility to make it more sim-feeling).

But through removing barriers to community fun, dropping you in a gorgeously giant sandbox, being true music connoisseurs with the radio stations, giving you all the customization options (including your garage) and making everything flow oh-so fluidly, developer Turn 10 has done the one thing a lot of sim titles seem to forget about in their search for ultimate realism: focus on the fun.

Whatever you want to do, whoever you want to be, it’s all here. Welcome to a new Horizon. You’re going to be here for a while.

Forza Horizon 6: The basics

• What is it? Forza Horizon 6 is a free-roaming racing game with plenty to do in a giant Japan sandbox.
• Who is it for? This is for racing enthusiasts and those who want to explore car culture anew.
• What's the price? Forza Horizon 6 costs $69 from retailers like Amazon.
• What other games has the developer made? Turn 10 has been dedicated to the Forza franchise ever since 2005, and FH6 is co-developed with Playground Games, also currently making Fable.
• What games is it similar to? Forza Horizon 6 takes some DNA from fast-paced arcade racers like Outrun 2 and Sega Rally, throws in some sim credentials like Gran Turismo 7, and drops you into a sandbox like Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown.

The Wangan Stretch: A world of pure scale

It all starts just like any Horizon game, with a theatrical intro that has you experiencing the different core types of racing you’ll be jumping into — a full-on assault of the senses with a perfectly paired soundtrack with drops timed to each big moment and all the visual pomp and circumstance of a Horizon Festival opener.

But while this definitely establishes a real infectious vibe for car lovers, nothing quite prepares you for when the world truly opens up and you see the world for what it really is: a diverse, handcrafted work of art. From the wide-open stretches of roads and mountainous vistas to the bustling neon-lit spaghetti streets of Tokyo, this map (5X bigger than Forza Horizon 5) is a real joy to explore. And yes, that does include a legendary looping highway inspired by the Wangan.

Cars gleam with mesmerizing fidelity as you race through the world, and every finite detail can be observed up close. The faithful recreations of cars old and new give fans of anything on four wheels a lot to love right here. Then there’s the sound engineering, which brings their explosive engines to life in a way that reacts to the world around you. Hearing an engine roar while pelting through a tunnel is a jaw dropping experience.

To top it all off, Turn 10 has thrown in an absolute banger soundtrack — all your usual array of genre-driven radio stations with Japanese flair for good measure. With an all-in Gacha City Radio giving you a full suite to bands like the incredible BABYMETAL popping up in the Horizon XS, it’s all here to immerse you.

Performance-wise, you’re assured up to 60 FPS on consoles, and thanks to DLSS 4.5 support and multi-frame generation, I was easily able to get over 200 FPS at 4K max settings on my RTX 5080 rig. Oh, and shout-out to Steam Deck performance too — running at a nice 35-40 FPS average without any of that awkward rubberbanding you saw in the previous Horizon titles. My flights to and from New York flew by with hours of gameplay.

The way of the Hashiriya: A never-ending checklist

So you’re here in this living, breathing world…what now? Well, there’s a lot to do, and it’s all structured around a simple yet addictive loop of gaining new wristbands based on your way to becoming a Horizon Legend. This will have you doing road (street and now track), dirt and cross country racing, PR stunts and showcases.

Special mention here to the Horizon Rush events — purpose-built courses that feel like a late, great Ken Block Gymkhana event come to life with a true test of technical skill. Each one grabs you by the collar and pulls you into its addictive replayability to nail that best time.

And just like other Horizon games, many side quests become all-encompassing too. Whether it’s watching Japan unfold in storylines that connect you more to the world around you, photography goals to test your snapping fingers, secret aftermarket cars to buy in all kinds of locations, or even food delivery jobs that would make Peter Parker blush in “Spider-Man 2,” you won’t ever be left with an empty world with nothing to do. Oh, and of course, there are over 550 real-world cars to collect, too!

What’s most impressive about all of this is how seamlessly it all comes together — plenty of depth for the pros and maximum accessibility for the fresh players. There are plenty of menus and a lot of ways you can tweak cars for best performance, or you could just skip all that, have next-to-no menu interaction and just drive. Whatever you want to do, Forza Horizon 6 just lets you go do it in its universe.

But believe me when I say this is only half the story, as I’ve not even talked about the multiplayer yet.

Zenki to Kouki: The art of the culture

I’ll be real with you. This is all great, but what tipped it into being a five-star experience for me is how it truly captures the life source of car culture. Too many racing games feel like a sterile interpretation of this essence, and on its sixth iteration, Forza Horizon has finally cracked the code.

It’s the culmination of all of this paired with the evolution of your many, many motors from Zenki (early) to Kouki (late) and imprinting your personality onto your own personal masterpiece. Knowing you’re going to take your ride to a street race or a touge battle (a straight up 1v1 downhill race) or a car meet really encourages you to get into building a relationship with your ride.

Nothing quite felt like taking a Toyota Supra A80 and giving it that aggressive aftermarket look I know and love to match the bonkers performance I’d extracted from the engine. But as I said up at the top, Horizon 6 is not afraid to unleash some of the bonkers fun of this culture and turn it up to larger-than-reality highs.

Want to go drag racing in a limousine? Sure! Throwing your car off a 500-foot jump? Go for it! You even race a damn mech, it's such a cool moment! All these are possible and on paper, it's really silly. But in execution, it's this vibe of anything being possible that makes car culture so great.

At its core, Turn 10 has made a much more focused effort on starting you with a basic car that you turn into your own pride and joy over time with extensive customization tools (you can even customize your garage)! And throwing all this into the mix with everything up above feels almost surgical in becoming a true tastemaker of the culture. Nothing else captures that emotional grasp quite like this.

Forza Horizon 6 review: Verdict

I know you’re going to read a lot of reviews that talk extensively about the huge feature set, the gameplay mechanics, the graphical fidelity and sound production. But in my mind, the sum is far greater than its individual parts as to establish the vibe and feel that truly feels like an ongoing dopamine hit — causing me to accidentally play for 10 hours straight without even realizing.

Forza Horizon 6 is a master class in capturing car culture with technical driving and customization running through its veins, a gargantuan amount of modes to jump into, and an accessible seamlessness to it all. For seasoned veterans, it’s easily the best in the series, and for those getting their first taste of Horizon, it’ll be the best racing game you’ve jumped into in a long time.