With Microsoft finally admitting your TV is not an Xbox, the time is absolutely right for Forza Horizon 6 to demonstrate what the Xbox brand always stood for: kick-ass gaming on a kick-ass console (and PC, alright). And for the most part, Forza Horizon 6 absolutely delivers that. This sleek, Japan-set open world arguably makes for the most 'AAA' racing game ever made, even pipping Gran Turismo 7 in terms of technical prowess. Playing on my Xbox Series X, I'd go so far as to say I've never seen a better racing game engine. While I have some reservations about elements of its play, which we'll get to, fundamentally this is a product that would fit nicely into anyone's game library. It's the best Forza Horizon game, and a quite remarkable feat of software production.
The most important part of any driving game is how the car moves, and Forza Horizon 6 is almost too smooth. Drive a real car after playing this for a few hours and you will conclude that the game is very little like real driving. Off-road, there are moments where it feels like the sublime early rally stages in Gran Turismo 3, with the car's wheels rolling convincingly over smoothly undulating dirt roads. But on tarmac, everything feels a little too sanitized. The closest modern comparison of feel would be Dirt 5: glorious trackside vegetation, plenty of physics objects to disturb, but all a bit 'nice' and inoffensive compared to the genre's best.
