Forza Horizon 6 isn’t just winning races — it’s rewriting Playground Games’ record books. The studio’s open-world racer, which sends players tearing across a sun-soaked, neon-lit recreation of Japan, has rocketed past 6 million players in just one week, stacking its premium early-access head start on top of an explosive worldwide launch.
The momentum has been impossible to ignore. During the Premium Edition early-access window the game hit a peak of 178,009 concurrent players on Steam — more than double the 81,096 that Forza Horizon 5 managed at its height. When the doors opened to everyone on May 19, that figure climbed past 270,000 concurrent, believed to be the highest concurrent count ever recorded for a racing game on Steam.
Those players aren’t just showing up — they’re staying. Forza Horizon 6 launched to glowing reviews, holding a Top Critic Average of 91 on OpenCritic that places it among the best-reviewed games of 2026 so far. The six-million milestone spans every platform the game is available on, including Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Steam and Game Pass.
Japan, at last
After years of fan requests, the Horizon Festival has finally set up in Japan, and the team is calling this its best map yet. The open world stretches from the neon canyons of a Tokyo-inspired metropolis to misty mountain touge passes, cherry-blossom-lined country roads and the shadow of a towering volcanic peak. With more than 550 real-world cars to collect and tune, it is the biggest and most varied playground the series has ever built.
What comes next
Playground has plenty of road left to cover. A PlayStation 5 release is still on the calendar for later in 2026, which should push these already-staggering numbers even higher, and the studio’s familiar cadence of seasonal updates, themed events and fresh car drops will keep the festival rolling for years. For now, though, the takeaway is simple: Forza Horizon 6 is the biggest the series has ever been, and it is only just getting started.
