With only two weeks to go until the Forza Horizon Festival opens its doors in Japan, Playground Games hosted a fan Discord Q&A answering some questions which haven’t been addressed in the games busy, and exciting pre-launch campaign.

Forza Horizon 6 Design Director, Torben Ellert was on-hand to respond to a number of questions and concerns. And we’ve collated the key takeaways here for you.

There are updates to my personal favourite, The Eliminator including a brand-new starter vehicle. Also detailed are the game’s new mountain based one-on-one Touge Battles, as well as the Festival Playlist which gives timed access to selected cars.

Forza Horizon 6 Discord Q&A Highlights

• The Eliminator: Fan favourite, The Eliminator – Horizon’s battle royale game mode – will return. The new starter car for the game mode will be a 1984 Honda City. The City will have more “oomph” than previous Eliminator starter cars.
• Forza Edition cars: They will be very rare and will be unique to individual players and are level specific.
• Touge Battles: These are one-on-one battles that take place at various mountain locations, each with a specific opponent. They are not tied to Festival progression.
• Legend Island: The game’s final area, Legend Island which unlocks when you reach the game’s highest rank will have its own Horizon Outpost. There will be activities here too including speed traps, drift zones and more.
• Festival Playlist: This will be available very early in the game, as soon as you earn your way into the Horizon Festival. This is about one hour into the game. The Festival Playlist has been slightly controversial for players as the offer of limited time items has locked people out of many items and cars for a long time. Horizon 6 will give players better access to lapsed Festival Playlist items, more details on how that will work will be shared in due course. It took Playground years to give players an opportunity to purchase some of those items via the in-game store (credit: IGN). This is particularly important given the game will release on PS5 later this year, meaning PlayStation gamers will have missed several Playlists by that time.

• The Goliath race: A iconic feature of the series is the Goliath race. The final race of the game is an extensive route around the game’s map, and in Horizon 6 will be an incredible 50 mile race which begins on Legend Island.
• Radio stations: One of the best bits of Horizon is its soundtrack. Personally, I can’t wait to see what the radio stations will include. Ellert confirmed more will be shared closer to launch.
• Ranked mode: The developers know this is something players want, but they haven’t found a right way to integrate it to the game at this time.
• Vinyl and decals import from previous Horizon games: There will be the ability to import decals and vinyl from FH5. Importing of tuning and other EventLab creations will not be possible.
• Car roleplay (eg: headlights / window opening): For the roleplaying community, many would like to be able to toggle headlights or open windows for example. There are no plans for this at this time.
• Traffic density: The developer said this is very complicated and thought out in the game. The intention is to create a balance between real feel on the road, as well as space to drive. A density slider or traffic spawner is available to the developers and access may be considered for Event Labs.
• Day / night toggle: The developers would love to give the keys to this to solo players, but this will not be available.

These are the key takeaways from the developer session. If you want to catch-up on all the other news from the Forza Horizon 6 Discord Q&A, be sure to head to the server.

Forza Horizon 6 will contain the series largest and most condensed map to-date. Tokyo will be the most expansive urban environment in the franchise history and looks absolutely stunning at day or night in the footage we’ve seen till now.

Launching alongside the game is a brand-new Xbox controller and wireless headset. If you’re as excited for the game as I am, be sure to check out the Forza Horizon 6 achievement list to see what’s in store for the coveted 1,000G completion.

Forza Horizon 6 launches May 19, 2026 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Xbox Game Pass and Steam. Early access is available for Premium Edition owners. The game will arrive on PlayStation 5 later this year.

Are you queuing up to enter the Horizon 6 Festival? Will you be picking up the controller or headset for your Japan adventure? Let us know in the comments below or join the friendly and active Gamer Social Club Discord to chat about all your favourite racing games.