Five years after the Xbox Series X launched, Playground Games is finally cutting the cord on last-gen hardware. Forza Horizon 6 arrives on May 19 without an Xbox One version in sight, and the studio says that decision changed everything about what the game can actually do.
Here's the thing: every Forza Horizon game since the launch of the Series X has had to ship on both generations simultaneously. Forza Horizon 5 launched in late 2021, just a year after Microsoft's new console, and for all its visual accomplishments it was still being built around the constraints of decade-old hardware. Design director Torben Ellert doesn't mince words about what that meant in practice. "I think you can't overstate it. It's a sea change," he told GamesRadar+. "The interesting space that you get to innovate is from where you suddenly have headroom in systems that you didn't have previously."
What extra headroom actually means for players
The most immediate example is a pair of new vehicle acquisition systems: Aftermarket cars and Treasure cars. Aftermarket cars are parked throughout Japan's open world and can be purchased at a discount after a test drive. Treasure cars are rare, hidden spawns inspired by iconic Japanese vehicles that players can restore and take out into the world. Both systems depend on the game being able to spawn cars dynamically into the environment, something that simply ate too much memory when Xbox One had to be accounted for.
"Aftermarket and Treasure cars are experiences that were afforded by the fact that there was some memory headroom that we could use to have those cars spawn in the world," Ellert confirmed. For players who have spent years sifting through hundreds of vehicles in the Autoshow menus, that shift toward world-embedded discovery is a meaningful quality-of-life change.
Then there's Tokyo City. Art director Don Arceta describes it as roughly five times the size of Forza Horizon 5's Guanajuato, split into distinct districts with their own character and density. It's the largest urban environment the series has ever attempted, and Arceta is candid about how difficult it was to pull off. "Japan has really dense foliage everywhere, and then there's a very dense urban area, which is our Tokyo City environment. Those two things were really challenging for us."
Tokyo City is confirmed as the largest urban environment in Forza Horizon history, approximately five times larger than Forza Horizon 5's Guanajuato.
Ellert put it more bluntly: "And then there's Tokyo City, obviously. The technical challenge of achieving that is still terrifying to me, and we've almost shipped this thing!"
The smaller details that add up
Beyond the headline features, Playground points to a long list of smaller improvements that current-gen focus made possible. Water now visibly kicks up from tires during rain. Neon lighting in Tokyo City reflects realistically during night driving. Window livery painting is finally supported in vehicle customization. Car Meets can be joined without loading screens. New Time Attack circuits and Drag Meets include in-world leaderboards that update in real-time.
None of those are individually system-selling features, but together they represent the kind of polish that gets quietly appreciated by players who spend hundreds of hours in a game.
Built on iteration, not reinvention
Playground is careful to point out that not everything in Forza Horizon 6 is purely a hardware story. Ellert describes the game as the product of a "maturity of ideas" from a team that has been working together across multiple entries. The Customizable Garage and the Estate (a player-built, open-world base) both trace their lineage directly back to player houses and Event Lab from Forza Horizon 5.
"We're very iterative in the way that we build things," Ellert said. "We introduced player houses and people loved that. We introduced Event Lab, and people loved that. Okay, so we can smash those things together, and now you can customize your garages." The Estate takes that further, letting players construct and decorate a large space directly embedded into the game world, funded through in-game activities.
Ellert's philosophy on design is worth noting: "I often feel best about designs that extend a space until it becomes new, rather than just throwing everything out and saying, okay, here's something you've never seen before." That approach, combined with the raw technical freedom of a current-gen-only build, is what Playground is betting will make Forza Horizon 6 the best entry in the series.
Forza Horizon 6 launches May 19 on PC and Xbox Series X, with a PS5 version confirmed but arriving later. You'll want to keep an eye on latest gaming news as the release date approaches, and check out gaming reviews once the game is out to see how it holds up against those ambitious promises.
