The Trial is one of the hardest Festival Playlist events in Forza Horizon, and it returned in Forza Horizon 6’s Series 2 – Horizon Decades as a 6v6 co-op racing event where you team up with other players and have to beat a team of high-level Drivatars in a best-of-three championship.
Teamwork is required in The Trial because the event is not a solo race: your whole team wins or loses together, so one player finishing first cannot always save a team if several teammates finish behind the Drivatars.
How to unlock The Trial in Forza Horizon 6
The Trial is only available to Horizon Legends who have earned the Gold Wristband and reached Legend Island. Playground Games skipped The Trial in Series 1 to avoid pushing players through campaign progression too quickly, then added it back to the Festival Playlist starting with Series 2.
To earn the Gold Wristband, keep progressing through Horizon Festival events until you reach Horizon Legend status. Wristbands unlock new event access as you progress, and the Gold Wristband also opens Legend Island and other late-game content.
How The Trial works
The Trial puts up to six human players against a team of Drivatars across three races. You only need to win two races to complete the event, but the AI team is strong enough that bad car choices, small errors, or, well, bad teammates can cost the whole lobby.
In Series 2 Week 1, The Trial is called Push it to the Limit. It is worth 10 Festival Playlist points. It’s restricted to the B-Class 600 PI 1980s Total Rally cars, and rewards the 1986 Audi #2 Audi Sport quattro S1 for completion.
Best car for The Trial in Forza Horizon 6
For Series 2 Week 1, use the 1986 Lancia Delta S4 tuned to exactly 600 PI. It fits the 1980s Total Rally restriction, has all-wheel drive, and gives you the launch, dirt grip, and great handling, coupled with top speed that will exceed that of the Drivatars.
If you’re unsure which way to approach upgrading the car, simply use this Share Code to get a perfectly tuned 600 PI Lancia: 788 159 866.
The 1984 Opel Manta 400 is not a bad pick as well, and you can fit a Peugeot and some other cars, but the Lancia Delta S4 is simply a jack of all trades that’s fast, stable and very forgiving, has good brakes, and will not fly off when your own teammates inevitably bump into you or try to use you in their corner divebombs.
If you’re building it manually, make sure to equip the Offroad tires and upgrade it to exactly 600 PI, you should not leave any performance on the table.
How to win The Trial
The most important rule is simple: do not, under any circumstances, hit your teammates. Blocking Drivatars is useful, but ramming players off the racing line only helps the AI team score more points.
At the start of each race, focus on getting through the first few corners cleanly. The Trial usually falls apart when players divebomb the first turn, miss checkpoints, or force teammates wide, having to then spend the entire race catching up, or without even a chance to do that.
If you are near the front, your job is not only to win: Once you pass the leading Drivatars, you can slow them down slightly on corner exits and give teammates a chance to move up the order, or ram into them while overtaking. Simply winning could be enough sometimes if you have a competent team, but a much more likely scenario is that you will have to do some dirty work to win.
Conversely, if you are near the back, do not quit after one bad corner unless the race is already unrecoverable. Even finishing ahead of one or two Drivatars can change the team score, especially in a close second or third race.
Try not to miss any checkpoints, as even one Rewind could be absolutely brutal, as the opposing Drivatars do not make such mistakes.
The best way, of course, is to gather your friends and try to tackle the Trial as a premade group, but even without that, people are learning and are bumping into each other much less than expected.
The Trial completion checklist
Before starting The Trial, make sure you have:
- The Gold Wristband
- An eligible car. The 1986 Lancia Delta S4 is what we recommend.
- The car is tuned to 600 PI, this is no place for experimental builds.
- Patience to likely have to run the event several times.
Once the event starts, drive cleanly, avoid teammate contact, block Drivatars when you are ahead, and stay in the race even if you are not fighting for first place.
