It’s no secret that Forza Horizon 6’s Tokyo City is five times larger than Forza Horizon 5’s Guanajuato, but new details have emerged in an interview with IGN discussing the location. Playground Games revealed that its take on Japan’s capital city is so large in scale that it required a dedicated team, with the other half focusing on the remaining map areas.
“We have a team making our city specifically, and a lot of that is: it’s our biggest city we’ve ever made,” revealed Art Director Don Arceta. “It’s so layered and so detailed – much more than anything we’ve done in the past.”
“To make Tokyo City for Forza Horizon, we really need a dedicated team. It covers everything from roads, buildings, foliage, terrain; Tokyo has all of it. It’s just such a big biome that it just warranted its own team.”
Forza Horizon 6’s Tokyo is split into four districts
Reflecting on urban areas in previous Forza Horizon games, Production Director Mike Bennett admitted they were “one-note.”
“I think a criticism that could have been levelled at some of the previous games, within Guanajuato we did have different areas within it – we did have different building styles, and they were really colourful – but maybe it was a bit one-note as you were moving around. There weren’t huge amounts to separate one area from another,” he said. “Whereas, I think with our version of Tokyo, it’s very diverse.”
To make the location feel diverse, Forza Horizon 6’s Tokyo City is split into four districts. The suburbs feature narrow streets with intricate overhead telegraph cabling, while the dockyard is filled with crates, making it the perfect playground for drifting and EventLab creations.
Elsewhere, the industrial area is located on a separate island, accessible via the Rainbow Bridge. One of the highlights in this district is a tribute to Tokyo’s famous Daikoku parking area – a popular location for car meets. Finally, there’s the bustling downtown area first shown in the announcement trailer.
With its tight 90-degree turns and narrow alleyways, Design Director Torben Ellert notes that the downtown district offers a “completely different driving experience.” Here, you’ll also see more in-world Horizon Festival branding with banners and signs displayed around the city.
While Tokyo looked eerily empty with light traffic and a noticeable lack of pedestrians in the videos released so far, Playground Games confirmed that the city will be populated with people in designated areas to give it some life.
“When you’re building a city, one of the things that you expect to see is people,” said Bennett. “We’re not GTA, and we’re not trying to be GTA, so cars and people don’t always play nice. So we always have this challenge of, ‘So, how do we integrate people into the scene while still keeping them safe from cars?’”
“The nice thing about having the Horizon infrastructure ever present within the city, is that we can create areas within the city with Horizon Festival branding, and we can keep people in there, safe from cars, and you can still see a populated city as you’re driving around. So that fiction really helps us tie that in and solve one of those challenges.”
“We wanted this to be the most innovative Forza game that we’ve made”
Japan is one of the most requested locations for a Forza Horizon game. Playground Games is aware of high player expectations, but feels it was the right time to bring the Horizon Festival to Japan.
“Japan has been a location we’ve wanted to do, and it’s been on our shortlist for a number of games,” said Ellert. “But I think this was the first time that we felt that we could take a shot at it; that the fear was healthy rather than an actual panic response.”
“Each location offers new challenges, and obviously new gameplay and new experiences, but, for this one, Japan had a lot of challenges that we had to figure out and approach and try to solve,” adds Arceta. “And that was one of the things that, at least for myself, intrigued me to tackle Japan as a location.”
Forza Horizon 5 was criticised for failing to move the series forward. For the next entry, the developer assures it will offer more than just a new location, with new features ranging from car meetups to customisable garages. Ellert boldly claims the sequel will be “the most innovative Forza game that we’ve made.”
“I think a lot of the discussions that we had all the way back in concept for this project were around, ‘Is it just Japan? Is it a previous game that is on a new map?’” he said. “Our games are never like that. We always iterate, always innovate. We always introduce new features and push the game forward.”
“So, certainly from a design point of view, we were very careful and very aware of the fact that we needed to think about this as a game that was set in Japan, rather than that being almost like a core part of what the game would be. We couldn’t rely on it being Japan.
“We wanted this to be the most innovative Forza game that we’ve made; the most exciting game. The game where we push on a bunch of different axes and generate these new features that players would be really excited about. And it’s also in Japan.”
“Japan comes with so many expectations and everyone has their idea of what Japan is,” adds Arceta. “So, obviously, we had to look at those things, like Tokyo City and what they expect – and obviously mountainous roads, which both offer huge challenges for our team technically and gameplay-wise.”
“But it’s also trying to find the things that will surprise and delight players, and things that people don’t immediately think of Japan when they say it. And I think, as with all Horizon games, we always look for those in every location that we choose. For Japan, it’s no different.
“We have those nice surprises, and we’ve seen it with the footage we’ve shared so far. People are, like, ‘Does that exist? Is this for real?’ And it does exist in Japan, which is really exciting.”
Forza Horizon 6 will release on PC and Xbox Series X|S on 19th May, with a PS5 release set to follow later in 2026.