Yes, I wrote a whole thread about this and totally agree. I turn off all the assists because I want it to feel as simulation as possible.
The mechanics are definitely off. A Mercedes AMG One should be gripping asphalt like glue. It’s a fishtail happy mess. Even most cars over 500 hp are spinning with 0 in rear differential until you’re in 3rd gear. That’s arcade game sorry.
I feel like the overall feel of driving is better in motorfest then Forza at this point and that’s a really tough thing to say for a long time fan. Here were other points for me.
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!!!Longtime Forza Player Feedback for Forza Horizon 6: The Core Driving Mechanics Need Serious Attention
I have been playing the Forza series since the early titles in the 2000s, and the reason I stayed with the franchise was because it felt like the strongest realistic alternative to Gran Turismo. Forza had a very specific identity: it delivered realistic driving feedback without making the game feel overly restrictive or inaccessible.
That balance is what made the series special. The cars felt distinct. The handling felt believable. The driving mechanics rewarded skill, tuning, and familiarity with each vehicle. It gave players a sense of connection to the car without losing the enjoyment of the game.
The Horizon series added something brilliant to that formula: beautiful open-world environments, freedom, exploration, and a more expressive driving playground. But the core value still has to be the driving. The environments, car list, graphics, and world design are all secondary if the cars themselves do not feel right.
After Forza Horizon 4, I started to feel noticeable slippage in the driving mechanics. Horizon 5 was visually beautiful, but the handling already felt looser, less precise, and less grounded in believable vehicle physics. There was a clear shift away from the realism and control that built the franchise’s reputation.
With Forza Horizon 6, that issue now feels worse. From what I have experienced, this is the weakest the series has felt mechanically. The cars feel less connected to the road, less predictable under throttle, and less aligned with how real performance vehicles should behave. For a franchise with Forza’s history, that is a major concern because the mechanics are not a secondary feature. They are the foundation of the entire game.
I usually drive with assists off: no traction control, no stability control, and only ABS enabled. That should create a more realistic, more rewarding simulation-style experience for longtime players. Instead, many cars now feel almost impossible to control in a way that does not match real-world driving behavior.
High-horsepower vehicles should be demanding. That is expected. But not every supercar over 700 horsepower should immediately become uncontrollable in first and second gear with total wheelspin and fishtailing. Even with tuning adjustments, including reducing rear differential acceleration, some cars still behave as if the tires have no meaningful grip. That does not feel like realistic power delivery. It feels exaggerated, unstable, and poorly balanced.
Frankly, if I were one of the automotive brands licensing my cars to this series, and this was how those vehicles performed in-game, I would be LIVID. These cars are engineered with extraordinary grip, balance, drivetrain sophistication, and performance capability. When they are represented as unstable, twitchy, and nearly impossible to control in basic driving conditions, it does not just hurt the gameplay experience. It also misrepresents the character and engineering credibility of the cars themselves.
The issue is not simply that powerful cars are difficult to drive. The issue is that the game does not consistently communicate grip, weight transfer, throttle response, oversteer, or recovery in a believable way. Cars that should have strong road grip feel unstable even in a straight line. Turning behavior often feels disconnected from what the vehicle should be doing. When the car breaks loose, the cockpit animation and driver inputs do not always match the behavior of the vehicle, which immediately breaks immersion.
Cockpit realism needs serious improvement as well. The steering animation should reflect the car’s actual movement, especially during oversteer, counter-steer, corrections, and drifting. If the car is sliding, I should be able to see the driver responding naturally and accurately. The visual feedback inside the car should match the physics of what is happening outside the car.
Manual transmission cars also need more attention. A car with a traditional stick shift should not feel visually or mechanically interchangeable with a paddle-shift supercar. The game should show the driver shifting in real time, and the placement of the shift animation should match the actual vehicle layout. These details matter because they are part of the personality of each car especially if this is a classic car, you would hear the gear shift in the gearbox pretty loudly. That is a miss for realism.
Audio is another major area that needs rebalancing. In cockpit view, the engine and drivetrain often feel too muffled, while wind and ambient sound can feel too dominant. The wind should not be louder than the engine in a performance car. Cockpit audio should communicate the mechanical character of the vehicle: engine tone, exhaust, transmission behavior, intake sound, tire feedback, road texture, and the physical feeling of speed.
The concern is that Forza Horizon is moving too far into arcade territory while losing the serious driving foundation that made the franchise respected. Horizon can absolutely be fun, open, and fantastical. That is part of its appeal. But it should not come at the cost of believable vehicle behavior.
The comparison is especially frustrating because even more arcade-oriented games, like Ubisoft’s Motorfest, can sometimes feel more natural in terms of road feel and vehicle control. Ubisoft is not a racing house with Forza’s history, yet there are moments where the cars feel more predictable and better connected to the road. For a franchise that has been an industry standard for nearly two decades, that should be a warning sign.
Forza should not end up with the same problem that weakened franchises like Need for Speed, where spectacle became more important than the quality and credibility of the driving experience. The world can look incredible, but if the racing and vehicle mechanics are not right, longtime fans will feel the difference immediately.
For Forza Horizon 6, my request is simple: please refocus on the core driving experience.
Specific areas that need attention:
- Rebuild the no-assist driving model
Players who turn off traction control and stability control should get a challenging but believable experience. The cars should require skill, but they should not feel artificially unstable or impossible to keep in a straight line.
- Improve tire grip and power delivery
High-horsepower cars should be demanding, but they should not all behave as if the rear tires have no grip under moderate throttle. Grip, launch behavior, road surface, drivetrain layout, tire compound, and vehicle weight should all feel more accurately represented.
- Make tuning changes more meaningful
Differential, suspension, tire compound, aero, gearing, and throttle-related setup changes should have clearer and more realistic effects. If a player adjusts the rear differential to control acceleration behavior, that change should be meaningfully felt.
- Improve cockpit animation accuracy
Steering input, counter-steer, drifting corrections, and recovery animations should match what the car is actually doing. The driver’s visual behavior needs to feel connected to the vehicle physics.
- Differentiate manual, automatic, and paddle-shift cars
A traditional manual car should feel different from a paddle-shift car. The cockpit animations, shift timing, hand placement, and sound design should reflect the actual mechanics of the vehicle.
- Rebalance cockpit audio
Engine, drivetrain, exhaust, transmission, tire, and road feedback need to be more present inside the cabin. Wind and ambient noise should not overpower the mechanical sounds that define the car.
- Protect Forza’s identity
Forza Horizon can be a playground, but it still needs to feel like Forza. The open-world experience should enhance the driving, not distract from weaknesses in the physics model.
The environments in Horizon are incredible, and the creative ambition of the series is still clear. But the core premise of the game is driving. If the cars do not feel right, everything else becomes secondary.