"We're not making GTA" — Forza Horizon 6 creators revealed their approach to recreating Japan

The upcoming Forza Horizon 6 comes from Playground Games, a studio that grew (slowly, then suddenly) from a small crew into three offices. All hands are on deck for this one: the team's biggest open world yet, set in a virtual Japan that tries to feel right rather than copy-paste every street sign.

They won't rebuild the country "one to one." Instead, the focus is on mood — the odd corners, the outskirts of Tokyo, the mountain views — small cultural beats more than exact replicas. The team admits they approached the task with "healthy fear" rather than "panic"; Japan throws up neat ideas and awkward constraints, and that mix is part of why the location interested them in the first place.

Design director Torben Ellert pushed back on thinking of FH6 as simply "the fifth part on a new map." Playground keeps familiar mechanics where they work, while folding in new systems here and there; you won't feel like you suddenly learned a new game, but you will notice differences (i.e., tweaks that change how things flow).

Tokyo gets special treatment — it's the largest urban space the series has seen. The studio calls it "quite large," which undersells the variety: dense downtown towers, quieter suburbs with neat houses, and industrial docks where you can pull off stunts among containers. Expect a city that feels stitched together from contrasting districts rather than one uniform sprawl.

And no — it's not GTA. The team was explicit: cars and pedestrians won't interact the way they do in sandbox crime sims. To sell a believable Tokyo they leaned on infrastructure and signage; you’ll see plenty of Forza Horizon banners and festival ads. Where people are missing in some spots, that's deliberate — certain zones are meant to be closed to pedestrians, so emptiness is a design choice, not an oversight.

Two teams split the map for the first time in the franchise: one focused on Tokyo, the other on the outside world. The result covers snowy mountain areas (Japanese Alps), highlands, flat plains, and coastlines — a patchwork of biomes rendered with specific intent, from the snowdrift texture to the way a coastline fades into farms, etc.

The map will be divided into regions to help track activities, and there'll be a "fog of war" mechanic to nudge exploration — you can stumble into a tiny farmhouse ringed by sakura, or a hidden road that becomes your new favorite stretch. Small discoveries, not just waypoint ticking.

Release note: Forza Horizon 6 lands on PC and Xbox Series on May 19. A PlayStation 5 version should follow later this year. Preorders are open for the standard, deluxe, and premium editions — the premium tier grants early access starting May 15 (std, dlx, prm — for those keeping it short).