After years of requests, it’s official – Forza Horizon 6 is coming in 2026, and it is going to be set in Japan. Introduced in the present day through the Xbox Tokyo Sport Present 2025 Broadcast, we noticed a cinematic teaser trailer that included Easter eggs from every of the earlier video games within the open world driving sequence – earlier than providing a glimpse on the unbelievable world Playground Video games is creating.
After all, a teaser trailer is all the time going to generate much more questions – and fortunately I used to be in a position to go straight to Playground Video games to get solutions. In dialogue with Artwork Director, Don Arceta and Cultural Marketing consultant, Kyoko Yamashita, we dug into precisely why Japan was chosen as the subsequent location to discover, how this tackle Japan will really feel like a real reflection of the real-life nation, and way more.
Why Was Japan the Proper Match for the Subsequent Forza Horizon Sport?
With Playground Video games in a position to take their choose of setting from wherever on the planet, selecting the correct location could possibly be seen as a problem – however, with Japan, a lot was already in place.
“For a very long time, Japan has been high of Horizon followers’ want lists, so we’re excited to lastly be bringing this much-requested location to gamers in Forza Horizon 6,” explains Arceta. “Japan has such a singular tradition – from vehicles, to music, to trend – that make it excellent for the subsequent Horizon setting. As with all Horizon title, we wish to ensure that we do the nation justice by way of genuine illustration and Horizon open world playability – and now could be the precise time to understand that totally for gamers.”
The timing is true, partially, as a consequence of practicalities – it now feels as if the technical facet can sustain with representing Japan appropriately, and Playground’s builders additionally come armed with an enormous quantity of expertise from earlier video games.
“The great thing about Horizon video games is that every one offers us learnings and methods to make the subsequent even greater and higher,” says Arceta. “In addition to taking participant suggestions into consideration, we’ve additionally been in a position to lean into extra sensible issues – for example, the Forza Horizon 5 Sizzling Wheels DLC has helped us develop the elevated roads of Tokyo Metropolis in FH6.”
Yamashita provides that Japan is only a naturally attention-grabbing place to make your method round, making it an ideal match for the type of exploration a Horizon sport encourages: “I like the coexistence of Japan: a neighborhood shrine beside a small workshop beside a neon arcade – conventional and fashionable on the identical block. There may be a lot scope and inspiration to be explored with Japan, and the richness felt like a pure match for this sport.”
With Xbox going huge at Tokyo Sport Present, it additionally made it a pure match to announce the sport in the present day. “Whereas followers have been asking for this location for a very long time, it was vital to us to acknowledge the love and reverence we now have for Japan and its distinctive tradition,” Arceta continues. “What higher method to try this than saying in Tokyo at Japan’s largest gaming occasion of the yr?”
What Japanese Places Will Be Included?
Horizon video games usually carry out the feat of recreating a complete nation as a single, seamless map. It’s by no means a one-to-one chunk of the actual world, fairly a mix of areas that steadiness participant enjoyable with capturing the spirit of their inspiration. Japan, with so many assorted and acquainted areas, presents an enormous palette of prospects for the workforce. Whereas the teaser reveals us Mount Fuji and its environment, the place else will Playground pull from?
“Whereas we’re not saying an excessive amount of by way of element proper now, we’re excited to indicate followers the true breadth of magnificence – each pure and concrete environments – that Japan has to supply,” explains Arceta. “From the neon lights and towering buildings of Tokyo Metropolis – one in all our most detailed and layered environments up to now – to the serenity and pure fantastic thing about Japan’s rural and mountain areas, we expect gamers will probably be blown away by the open world of Japan that we now have constructed.
“And whereas we’re not essentially making an attempt to recreate Japan and its environments like for like, our objective has all the time been to seize the nation’s distinctive cultural essence and current it again in essentially the most Horizon method attainable.”
Analysis was an enormous a part of this course of – Arceta, Yamashita, and the workforce travelled to Japan to assist seize particulars which may not be as apparent when working merely from reference materials.
“The journey to Japan demonstrated that the dev workforce had been actually approaching Japan with the precise stage of curiosity and commentary,” enthuses Yamashita. “Throughout our fieldwork in Tokyo, a lot of the group had been first-time guests. A number of days in, somebody stated, ‘For all of the power right here, it’s… quiet.’ That commentary – organized chaos with shocking calm – instructed me they weren’t simply trying; they had been feeling the place. It’s the type of perception you possibly can’t faux, and it formed later conversations about motion, etiquette, and sound.”
