Dear forum regulars,
when do you think we’ll be talking about the next instalment in the series, Forza Horizon 6?
Since 2012, we’ve had a rhythm of 2 years between each release, and a maximum of 3 years between FH4 and 5.
I’m well aware that the video game model has changed a lot this decade, and more than ever the game service format, which is spread over X number of years and tries to get as many months out of it as possible.
Whether you like it or not, this system is becoming firmly established in many franchises (other than those linked to sport, which renew each season, F1&WRC, football and basketball, among others…).
As well as getting us used to being on our toes all the time, in search of the freshest, most unique and avoidable content (even if FH is correcting this over time, with the addition of FOMO vehicles in the shop, for example), the consequence of this FOMO content tends to drag games out.
I think Forza Horizon 5, successful as it is, is slowly but surely coming to the end of its cycle. The expansions have been out for a long time now, and the game is still full of seasonal content (made by and for players, event labs and so on), but the die is cast and it’s perhaps time to talk about the future.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next instalment scheduled for release no earlier than 2025, which would leave 4 years of development.
What do you think, and what are your predictions for the future of the franchise?
I think the amount of car packs we’ve been getting are a sign that we won’t see FH6 until some time in 2025.
Xbox has plenty of big hitters in the pipeline now though, so I don’t think they’ll necessarily make us wait until the 2025 holiday season.
Wouldn’t be surprised if we see it launch in the spring of '25.
I don’t think we’ll see a big departure from what we have in FH5, but I do think the map will be bigger and bolder given they’ll be leaving the last gen consoles behind.
Edit: The reason I think we could see FH6 in the spring is that with games like Call of Duty, Fable, Perfect Dark and many others as well as games we don’t even know about yet, there isn’t a need to save FH6 as their big holiday game.
I’d be surprised if Fable isn’t ready by holiday '25 and I don’t see Playground releasing 2 games near each other but who knows, maybe it’s Fable in the spring and FH6 in the fall.
I can’t see us getting Horizon 6 this year. I would say November 2025 is the earliest we’ll see it… I’m on prestige level 8 and still enjoy playing Horizon 5. There’s enough new stuff being drip fed to us to keep it interesting. Contrast that with Forza Motorsport that I given up on already.
Same here, said countless times I’d give it another chance when the Nurburgring came but even just thinking about playing FM I feel my enthusiasm being sapped.
I hope they keep the foundations of FH5 for the next game and dedicate all the resources into content, map size, the AI and stability instead, I personally think we’re at a point now where putting so much onus on graphics is pointless when the improvement can only be minor, and the amount of everything it takes up in development just isn’t worth it anymore, I don’t want FH6 to look 5-10% better than an already great looking FH5 if it means the first two things I mentioned at the start of this paragraph suffer as a result.
I will never be a fan of live service but it’s certain to go down that path for a 3rd time so I hope they start off with a great platform, I’d like to see the roads in particular designed with adding new races in mind, I like the ones we’ve had in this game but you can tell the majority have kind of been shoehorned in with the square/tight angled corners of Vista Del Mar, the roundabout on Linea or having to crash through the motorway/freeway barrier near the end of the Murcielago MB just to name a few examples.
But I will say I’m more optimistic for the next game now than I would if I’d thought about this 2 years ago.
I think a wider range of vehicles would be a great addition to the upcoming forza horizon games. We deserve more casual road cars such as Toyotas and Subarus just to add a sense of realism to the game, instead of having mainly super/hyper cars. I’m excited to see where this game goes and what the forza team has to offer.
My wild prediction would be early-mid 2026. Fable will probably take the front seat before the next Horizon.
Most of the post launch after expansion 2 felt to me like slowing down already. And now looking at where the community is at, it seems like it’s getting much quietter too. Revert back a year ago and there were many complaints, the forums, youtube and reddit… The activity in general. It was all on fire. Similar to how active FM is.
Currently it looks like they managed to last through that period, which seems to round up to about 2 years. They’ve also found a sweet spot as to keeping the community relatively happy with their updates. So now they can definitely free up their minds, hopefully having digested the criticism and dished out the negativity and focus on the next game properly. Players have been very vocal about what they want. And if they’re smart enough they can use all of that to their advantage and actually build a solid game. It’s just a matter of how much they’ll be allowed to do and which directions will they take.
If you think about it , no other racing games has this much at their disposal. They could do wonders with it. But that’s a fantasy i’ll not dare exploring any further.
Hope we’ll get it this year, but realistically -2025-2026. And I REALLY hope they will remodel/rescan old models, my beloved Evos (8-9), Silvia S15 and R32 Skyline are just jokingly wrong
“Weather you like it or not” was a typical rockstar dev kind of thing to say. But on another note a new xbox is being anmounced later this year, there for my guess is it will be one of the “day one” releases with gamepass. A way to force you into a membership to play a game. Regardless I’m not exactlt excited for it because turn10 has really hopped on the fornite wagon and started releasing “seasons and passes” along with countless trashy dlc packs. Nothing will compare to FH1 so as much as ive loved forza horizon and motorsport from the very beginning it’s sad to admit they’re both dead. It’s going to be very hard for them to make a come back from non dedicated servers that server hop you and your convoy constsntly, the seasons need to go, the s h i t selection of “cars” needs to go it’s not a car game anymore it’s basically a family friendly arcade game at this point it’s literally the opposite of it’s very own roots, the biased car power outputs needs to seriously be taken care of specifically. Until they add turbo customization options the game is dead. Currently a lamborghini diablo is the fastest car in the game in the quarter mile even though COUNTLESS other cars with enough boost would be untouchable. The entire franchise has turned into a money grab targeting children with their parents credit and debit cards loaded up and ready to go… honestly i couldn’t care less if we didn’t even get a fh6 that’s how bad it’s fallen apart… and god forbid they try to combine motorsport with horizon… that game has been a disaster since launch and I’m beyond grateful i didnt waste my momey on a preorder to play it ahead of time, it was worse and still is worse than payday 3 was when it first launched…
I just want to them to fix all the convertibles that are broken(the ones that dont work) like the SLK55 hopefully that one wont be on a wont fix list for the next game
Given that Playground Games is working on the Fable Game and having quite the long development period i think even 2025 wouldn’t be the time for FH6, I’ll be glad to have proven wrong but that’s the statistic that we have for now.
The developent of Fable should have no impact on the development of FH6. Back when they were first looking at Fable, Playground Games bought out an existing game development studio purely for the development of Fable so that there would be an entirely separate team working on it. Of course, there may be some overlap due to Fable using Forzatech for the game and whether they need any assistance in making it work, though I’d expect any Forzatech support to come from Turn10 given they developed it.
