I’m convinced aForza Horizon 6announcement is on the horizon, if you’ll excuse the shoddy pun. 2025 marks four years since the launch ofForza Horizon 5— longer than the gap between anyForzatitle ever. While a formal announcement has yet to be made, I think the hints are out there.
All cheekiness aside, there genuinely are reasons why one might expect Playground Games to finally come out and reveal thatForza Horizon 6is in some stage of development. This is one of Xbox’s most successful game series by far, and it stands tall even in the wake ofHalo‘s failures andGears of War‘s long absence. It’s so successful thatit’s even being ported over to PlayStation 5.
This is one of the key reasons why I think we’ll be getting aForza Horizon 6announcement in 2025. Before we get to that part of the equation, though, we’ve got to establish our timeline.
Forza Horizon 5 is done, for all intents and purposes
Though Playground Games hasn’t come out and said it, it should be clear by now thatForza Horizon 5is winding down its post-launch support outline. It’s notdonedone in the same sense as its predecessor,Forza Horizon 4(which was outright delisted), but the biggest chunks of bonus content have already been released, and we’ll get way fewer goodies as we go. This may sound like a downer, but it really isn’t.Forza Horizon 5received the most substantial and comprehensive slew of content updates post-release of any otherForzagame.
It surprised me to learn that it’s been four whopping years sinceHorizon 5was released. In that time, we received a total of 42 full-sized content updates, which more-or-less doubled FH5’s vehicle roster. It’s a huge boon if you’re a lightweight gearhead with a penchant for collecting shiny baubles like I am. In context, the 43rd seasonal update, which is a bit smaller, doesn’t look too bad, but it does present us with an obvious change of pace:Forza Horizon 5is winding down.
Driving this point home further still is the fact that there will be no more new Festival Playlists coming toFH5. Instead, the community will now be able tovote on next month’s seasonal theme, which will then feature an assortment of appropriate goodies and events for players to pursue. It’s a good system on paper, of course, but it, too, shows us which way the winds are blowing.
With Forza Horizon 5 effectively wrapping up its content output, the next step is obvious
Keeping all of the above in mind, we can now circle back to the fact thatForza Horizon 5is coming to PlayStation 5. Certainly, one could think of this as yet another in a long line of capitulations to Sony, but I think there may be an extra layer to what Xbox and Playground Games are doing here. Specifically, this may be an adaptation of the way Sony has been handling most of its PlayStation-exclusive games: single-player, non-live-service titles only released on PC after a reasonable period of exclusivity ran out.
I don’t think it’s an accident thatForza Horizon 5is making its way to PlayStation now that its full-fledged live-service offerings have winded down. Xbox may instead be trying to expose an even greater number of players toForzaahead of the franchise’s next flagship release. Let’s be honest: if you’re just in for it for fun, casual driving and an open-world content bonanza, nothing beatsForza Horizon. And PlayStation, specifically, has never had aForzagame before.
Don’t take this to mean thatForza Horizon 6won’t be released on PlayStation on day one: it very well might. Yet, it’s also possible that Xbox will pursue a limited-time exclusivity setup in select cases. I feel that a franchise as prolific as Forza would definitely serve as the best possible guinea pig for this kind of approach.
Even though Playground Games’ Fable is coming, there’s no way Forza Horizon 6 isn’t being actively developed
In summary, then, I think we’re due to get an official confirmation and announcement ofForza Horizon 6in 2025 because:
There’s virtually no way Xbox won’t announce a new Forza Horizon game in 2025, taking these factors into account. The single potential issue with my theory, as it were, is that Playground Games has also been working on a fancy new Fable game for the past couple of years. This means the studio’s attention might’ve been divided to a greater degree than was otherwise expected. However, it should be obvious that the people working onForza Horizontitles aren’t also pulling double-duty producing an ARPG.
Playground Games has two separate studios operating under its umbrella in Leamington Spa: one is located at Rossmore House, and the other at St. Albans House. Some crossover between the two is to be expected, but there still is a dedicated in-houseForzateam working on the franchise, and they’ve not been twiddling their thumbs in the years prior.
So,Fableor noFable, we’re getting aForza Horizon 6announcement in 2025, I’m sure of it. On a similar and entirely related note, do you reckonthose car model fixesmight be due forForza Horizon 6as well? Or am I just being highly optimistic here, again? Guess we’ll find out!
