Forza Horizon 6 Guide: Everything You Need to Know

Forza Horizon 6 is the biggest Horizon so far and the first one where the game does not hand you a hypercar in the first ten minutes. You start small in Japan and earn your way up.

This is the hub for everything I publish on the game. It covers how the game is structured, what hardware you need and what I would do in the first hours. I checked every fact on this page on 4 October 2026.

Forza Horizon 6 at a glance

The PS5 version is still undated. I keep the full trail of statements on my Forza Horizon 6 release date page and update it when something moves.

The map: Japan

The map is a fictional Japan. Playground calls it the largest map in the series, and says the Tokyo area alone is five times larger than the city areas of earlier Horizon games.

What is in it:

• Tokyo City, with Shibuya Crossing, Ginko Avenue and Tokyo Tower.
• Roads inspired by the C1 loop, the highway ring that Japanese street racing is famous for.
• Mountain passes inspired by Mt. Haruna and Bandai Azuma. This is where the touge events live.
• An Alpine region with snow all year. Fit snow tires and you can drive on snow in any season.
• Legend Island, closed until you earn the Gold wristband.

Mount Fuji is on the horizon the whole time. You cannot drive up it.

Seasons are back. Spring has cherry blossom, winter has snow lower down the map.

How progression works: wristbands

This is the big change from Forza Horizon 5. FH5 gave you everything at once. FH6 goes back to the wristband ladder of the first Horizon games.

There are seven wristbands. You earn Festival points from races, PR stunts and things you find in the world. When you have enough points, a Wristband Event opens. Win it and you move up. Wristband Events are either a Showcase or a Horizon Rush, the new obstacle course event.

Two things matter here.

First, each wristband limits the car classes you can race in Festival events. You start in D and C class. Hypercars are locked out of Festival races until Purple.

Second, Gold opens Legend Island. That is the endgame: the Legend Island Circuit, R class events and The Colossus, the longest Goliath race the series has had.

I like this structure. A slow car on a good road teaches you more than a fast car you cannot keep on the road. It is the same in real racing. Nobody starts in a GT3.

Stamps and the Collection Journal

Wristbands are the racing ladder. Stamps are the exploring ladder.

There are seven stamps in the Collection Journal. You fill them by collecting and customising cars, photographing murals, smashing mascots, running touge and street races, touring with Mei and doing food deliveries.

Stamps are how you unlock player houses, barn find rumours and The Estate. So if you only race and never explore, you miss half of the unlocks.

Cars, tuning and customisation

More than 550 cars at launch. The cover cars are the Toyota GR GT Prototype and the Toyota Land Cruiser 250. My picks for each race type are in my best cars in Forza Horizon 6 list.

What is new on the car side:

• Forza Aero has been reworked, and there are more body kits.
• You can paint liveries on windows.
• Rims can be different front and rear.
• Tires show wear as the car collects mileage. It is cosmetic.
• Aftermarket cars are parked around the map. You can test drive them and buy them at a discount.
• Cockpit view now animates up to 540 degrees of steering rotation.
• Car Proximity Radar shows cars in your blind spots. It is optional. I would switch it on if you race in cockpit or bumper view.

The Car Pass adds 30 cars, one per week. It comes with the Deluxe and Premium editions.

The tuning menu follows the same logic as before. If you are new to it, my FH5 tuning guide explains what each slider does, and my guide on fixing understeer covers the problem most people have with a new build.

Event types

• Road, dirt, cross country and street races, as always.
• Touge battles. One against one on a mountain pass. Car control wins here, not power.
• Horizon Rush. Obstacle courses against the clock, like the one at Tokyo City Docks.
• Time Attack Circuits. Permanent circuits in the open world where you drive in and set a lap.
• Drift Attack. Added in Series 5 at Shimanoyama Circuit. Highest drift score in one lap. The cars I would take are in my best drift cars in Forza Horizon 6 list.
• Drag Meets. Open world drag strips with 12 car slots each. See my best drag cars in Forza Horizon 6.
• PR stunts: speed traps, speed zones, drift zones, danger signs.
• The Eliminator, the battle royale mode, now with 72 players.

Multiplayer

The meetups sit inside the shared open world. You drive up to a Car Meet, a Drag Meet or a Time Attack Circuit, you see real players there, and you join without a loading screen.

• A convoy holds up to 12 players.
• Horizon CoLab lets up to 12 players build together.
• Horizon Play is the online progression track. It goes to level 100, and levels 1 to 25 also pay Festival points toward your next wristband.
• Cross-play works between Xbox, Microsoft Store and Steam.
• Cross-save carries your progress between platforms. Playground has confirmed it for the PS5 version too.

The Estate and garages

There are eight garages on the map. You can decorate each one, and each one is a fast travel point.

The Estate is one big property in a mountain valley. You build and decorate on it freely. It unlocks through stamps, not wristbands.

PC system requirements

The game supports DLSS 4, FSR 3 and 4 and XeSS 2.1, and the frame rate is uncapped. The values I would run on each tier are in my Forza Horizon 6 best settings.

The jump from FH5 is the RAM. FH5 ran on 8 GB. FH6 wants 16 GB at minimum. If your PC handled Forza Horizon 5 at high settings with 16 GB, you are close to the recommended tier here.

On Xbox Series X you choose between Quality, 4K at 30 fps, and Performance, 60 fps at a dynamic resolution. I would take Performance every time. In a driving game the frame rate is your reaction time.

Wheel and controller

Forza Horizon 6 is built for a controller first. It works well on a wheel, but do not expect a simulator.

On the wheel side, the game supports Logitech, Thrustmaster, Fanatec and MOZA bases. The official list of tested wheels is on the Forza support site. Check your exact model there before you buy anything for this game.

Two notes from my own settings work:

• The Logitech RS50 runs in its native mode in FH6. In FH5 on PC it does not. The table is in my RS50 settings by game.
• The force feedback menu has the same sliders as FH5: Force Feedback Scale, Center Spring Scale, Wheel Damper Scale, Mechanical Trail Scale, Minimum Force, Load Sensitivity, Road Feel and Off-Road Feel. The values for each brand are in my Forza Horizon 6 wheel settings.

What I would do in the first hours

1. Finish the Horizon Qualifiers and the Horizon Invitational. That gives you the Yellow wristband and your first cars.
2. Switch the racing line to braking only. You learn the roads faster when you have to look for the corner yourself.
3. Pick one D or C class car and upgrade it properly. One good car beats five stock ones.
4. Drive to events. Do not fast travel yet. You pick up roads, stamps and aftermarket cars on the way.
5. Do the PR stunts you pass. They pay Festival points.
6. Raise the Drivatar difficulty one step every time you win by more than a few seconds. Easy wins teach you nothing.
7. Open the Collection Journal early, so you know what the seven stamps want from you.
8. Try one touge battle as soon as it unlocks. It shows you fast if your car is too stiff or too powerful for the tires.

Updates and expansions

The game gets a series update about every four weeks, each with a Festival Playlist and reward cars.

• Series 5 started on 7 September 2026. It added Drift Attack at Shimanoyama Circuit and a British Automotive theme.
• The October series is a 7-Eleven collaboration, with an Evolving World theme and an EventLab content pack.
• The Premium Edition includes two expansions. Playground has not announced the location or the date of the first one.

FAQ

Is Forza Horizon 6 good for beginners?

Yes. The wristband ladder starts you in slow cars and adds speed step by step, and every assist can be switched on or off.

How many wristbands are in Forza Horizon 6?

Seven: Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink, Orange, Purple and Gold.

How do you unlock Legend Island?

Earn the Gold wristband. That is the seventh and last one, and it gives you the Horizon Legend title.

How many cars are in Forza Horizon 6?

More than 550 at launch. Series updates and the Car Pass add more every week.

Can my PC run Forza Horizon 6?

The minimum is a GTX 1650 class graphics card, a Core i5-8400 or Ryzen 5 1600, 16 GB of RAM and an SSD. That targets 1080p at low settings and 60 fps.

Does Forza Horizon 6 support steering wheels?

Yes. Logitech, Thrustmaster, Fanatec and MOZA wheels are supported. Check the official list for your model.

Does Forza Horizon 6 have cross-play?

Yes, between Xbox Series X|S, Microsoft Store and Steam. Cross-save is supported as well.

Is Forza Horizon 6 on PS5?

Not yet. It is confirmed for 2026 without a date.