There's a magic to street racing through Tokyo City. The downtown area illuminated by streaks of headlights, the soundscape suffocating under screeching tires as the two-liter, four-cylinder VTEC engine set inside my Honda S2000 brushes 0-60 in 5.5 seconds. The adaptive triggers of the Xbox Series X controller whir as the vehicle shifts past 160mph, jolting as I wrestle the speedster into a drift through winding city streets. Somewhere behind me, a Drivatar is swerving into incoming traffic. You have reached your destination: open-world racing like you've never experienced it before.
Forza Horizon 6 makes an astonishing first impression. Then again, the series doesn't have the luxury of doing anything less. When developer Playground Games unleashed Forza Horizon 5 in 2021, the studio quickly set a new benchmark for the genre – FH5 remains one of the best racing games, not to mention one of the best Xbox Series X games and best PS5 games.
