Reasons Why Forza Horizon 6 Is Prepared to Bring the Series to Japan

      Xbox Game Studios

      The most important news and reviews about cars, straight to the point

      Sign up for our free daily newsletter that delivers the most significant stories to you every weekday.

      After countless rumors and years of fan requests, it’s finally happening: The Horizon Festival is coming to Japan. Forza Horizon 6 is set to be released next year, as announced by Xbox during its Tokyo Games Show presentation. Players have been eagerly anticipating this for a long time, with excitement brewing since as far back as 2018, prior to the launch of FH4. It’s hard to imagine any other location generating this level of enthusiasm. While Japan has its own distinct automotive culture, developers at Playground Games shared reasons why it took until now for Horizon to arrive there.

      Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Forza Horizon 6 Art Director Don Arceta and Cultural Consultant Kyoko Yamashita. Our conversation was enjoyable, but unfortunately limited in detail; Playground is currently only discussing the game’s setting. I inquired about the types of environments included in the map, its size, and how they might influence Horizon’s traditional gameplay. Their responses were somewhat cautious, but it became clear that the diversity of the world in FH6 promises to surpass previous entries.

      “To be honest, Japan was always on our list whenever we chose locations,” Arceta explained when I asked about the timing of this decision. “With each game, we’ve learned from past Horizon titles, from 5 to 6. I believe that thanks to all these lessons, both technologically and in terms of game evolution since [Forza Horizon] 1, we can now do this justice.”

      Naturally, the city of Tokyo will feature in Horizon 6, and Arceta described this area as “the most extensive, most complex part we’ve created in any Horizon game so far. It has a lot of depth, with elevated roads and roads of various sizes.” Furthermore, the technology that facilitated this depth originated from an unexpected source.

      “A lot of the technology we’ve developed over the years for creating our open worlds has advanced significantly since FH1,” Arceta noted. “We’ve taken multiple approaches, but one example is Hot Wheels. In the Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels expansion, we created technology to build our orange tracks in a different manner than we did in Forza Horizon 3. This innovation allowed us to quickly iterate, enhance quality, and produce something enjoyable. We’ve adapted that tech for our Tokyo city as well, particularly for our elevated roads, which are prevalent given Tokyo's layered road structures.”

      The advancements Playground Games made for the verticality in Forza Horizon 5’s Hot Wheels expansion have enabled a dense Tokyo city environment filled with “elevated roads, tunnels, and narrow streets,” according to Art Director Don Arceta. Xbox Game Studios

      While urban environments were somewhat overlooked in earlier Horizon titles, density is a crucial aspect of capturing the authentic feel of Tokyo, and it appears Playground has invested significant time in adapting its tools to accomplish this. Arceta stated that not only is Tokyo the largest city featured in Horizon history, but overall, FH6 represents “our biggest map to date” and “probably the most content-rich map as well—it has plenty to engage with.”

      As fans of the franchise may expect, certain regions of the map won’t be precise duplicates of real-world locations. When I mentioned Japan’s notoriously narrow streets, Arceta clarified that “we’re not doing one-for-one recreations; in Horizon games, we never do that. We aim to capture the authenticity, feel, and spirit of the location as we’ve done in past projects, while also catering to the gameplay fans expect.” Beyond the city, FH6’s Japan will feature coastal areas, mountainous roads (with a glimpse of Mount Fuji in the teaser), and expansive countryside.

      This world will also change with the seasons, similar to Horizon’s portrayals of the U.K. and Mexico. The addition of seasons in FH4 significantly enriched the sense of place, and as Yamashita shared, the influence of seasons on different regions of the country played a role in selecting locations for FH6’s “greatest hits” of Japan.

      “You don’t have to be a native Japanese citizen, but if you are born and raised or have spent considerable time in Japan, it’s like your body adapts to the seasons, both literally and figuratively,” Yamashita explained. “Japan even has a term signifying the 72 micro-seasons in a year—people often refer to the four main seasons, but the transitions are more nuanced.” Yamashita highlighted Japan’s climate diversity, spanning an area that’s “nearly the length of California combined with a bit of Oregon.”

      “When you consider that area having such unique character throughout the four seasons, affecting daily, weekly, and monthly life—from food to clothing to what you notice during your daily commute—that experience is so intrinsic to Japanese