Forza Horizon 6 keeps the series' hot streak alive and speeds to become 2026's best-rated game of the year so far, dethroning Pokemon Pokopia and bumping Resident Evil Requiem down a spot.
Reviews for the open-world driving game started chugging along earlier today, and to no one's surprise, they were just as pristine as you'd expect from the Playground Games series. On Metacritic, Forza Horizon 6 averages a score of 92 based on 62 critic reviews and counting - it ties with FH5 and FH4, while FH3 has a 91 score on the site.
Forza Horizon 6's glistening debut also means it's comfortably in the top spot for the year. Cutesy life sim spin-off Pokemon Pokopia and action-horror mutation Resident Evil Requiem both have a still-respectable average score of 89, but even Leon Kennedy can only do so much when faced against the might of 550 or so cars. (Check out our Forza Horizon 6 car list for the full rundown.)
GamesRadar+'s Forza Horizon 6 review called it the "best Forza Horizon game yet, delivering an astonishingly vast and detailed open world, filled with incredible features" that's only held back by playing things a little too safe.
Eurogamer agrees that Forza Horizon 6 doesn't reinvent the wheel, but that's not exactly necessary when the wheel is polished enough to reflect the road blurring by: "The latest open-world racing behemoth from Playground Games instead rethinks and reworks the five titles that came before, trimming the fat and reintroducing the best bits to make Forza Horizon 6 the cleanest, buzziest, and most engrossing experience it can be."
IGN calls it a "gundamn masterpiece" and the series' best-looking, best-sounding game yet, partly thanks to Japan's stunning vistas and iconic car culture that's mentioned in pretty much every write-up about the game.
And Polygon also notes that "it's justifiable to ask how much longer it can follow the smooth grooves of its long-perfected formula without settling into a suffocating routine" after six full games and a handful of expansions.
Sounds like your Forza Horizon 6 mileage will probably vary based on how much you've enjoyed the breakneck pace of the series formula in the past, whether you've had your fill, and if the new Japan map is enough of a draw.
