Hello to the entire Forza community, and congratulations to the developers for finally confirming the setting for Forza Horizon 6!
FH6 in Japan: Expectations and Personal Connection
For many players, Japan is a distant country, but for me, as a resident of the Russian Far East, it is our immediate neighbor. In this region, JDM culture is not just a hobby; it is a daily reality and a way of life. This is why I will be extremely particular about the authenticity and representation of the unique car culture that is commonplace here.
Concern Regarding Localization
In light of recent trends where the Russian language is disappearing from major AAA titles (including those published by Microsoft), our community is experiencing deep concern regarding Forza Horizon 6.
We are grateful that Forza Motorsport (FM8) received full Russian localization. However, the selective exclusion of Russian from other projects (such as Bethesda titles) raises fears for the future of the Horizon series.
Russia, along with the entire Russian-speaking community, has millions of dedicated Forza fans who purchase licensed copies and support the Xbox ecosystem, despite any restrictions.
Economic and Cultural Significance of the Russian Language
We urge you not to be swayed by political considerations and to refrain from excluding the Russian language from the game, as it holds key global status:
Language of International Communication: Russian is the official and unofficial lingua franca across the entire post-Soviet territory.
Official Status: Russian is one of the Official Languages of the United Nations (UN), confirming its global importance.
Localization Alternatives: If legal or logistical limitations prevent you from contracting with a Russian translation studio, we ask you to consider alternatives. For example, Kazakhstan is a post-Soviet nation actively developing its own film and game localization industry since 2022.
The Russian-speaking Forza Horizon community asks you: please ensure full localization for FH6 to maintain loyalty and accessibility for millions of fans worldwide.
Clearly been using a VPN then! Given that UK and US companies are actually forbidden by law to sell anything in the Russian federation, they’re hardly likely to develop for that territory. If they did it would throw up some interesting questions regarding sanctions.
Eh? You said Russian isn’t only spoken in Russia. While obviously that’s true, it is the only country that’s it’s the only ‘official’ language. I asked you ‘What doesn’t work like that’ and I’m genuinely interested?
Why does this matter you ask? Well as I said, it almost certainly will not get an official release in Russia, so It wouldn’t make much sense to spend money to develop the game for there.
What difference does it make in which country this language is official, if the potential audience that speaks it is still large, both inside and outside the country? And you seriously believe that if a game isn’t officially sold in a certain region, people there don’t buy it?
Many players buy games in regions outside of Russia’s jurisdiction, such as Kazakhstan. There are various services for depositing funds, such as Steam Kazakhstan.
Russian is also a state language in Belarus. Belarus is also under sanctions, but Kazakhstan is also a country where Russian is used 80% of the time in everyday life, and Kazakh is merely a formality for documents. In other post-Soviet countries, Russian is either a near-official language or is used more often than the official language.
So the Russian-speaking audience willing to pay for games is very large, and the sanctions are temporary and will end sooner or later, and the audience won’t return if they are treated poorly. We are all willing to pay, but during this difficult period, we are in a gray area that will sooner or later become a bright area.
