Forza Horizon 6 leaks early, developer responds by banning the IPs of anyone playing it for just under 8 thousand years

2 weeks ago 13

Three sports cars racing past the finish line towards the camera, nearly crashing into each other.

The upcoming Forza Horizon 6 has been leaked, apparently through mistake rather than malfeasance, with a Steam upload that contained the full build of the game.

"Big shout-out to the homies at Microsoft for accidentally publishing Forza Horizon 6 on Steam early," says notorious malware website VX-Underground on X. "Microsoft corrected the issue but it was too late. Stinky internet nerds yanked it and now it's all over piracy sites. Very cool, Microsoft."

Several off-road vehicles, including a jeep centre-frame, racing through a field of red flowers.

Annnd mic drop. The weird thing is that Forza Horizon is one of those games where pirating it and having no access to the online side removes most of what makes the game great, which in my opinion would be the weekly and seasonal events that function as the endgame. Forza Horizon 6 without those… yeah, I'd rather just pay the ticket price and actually enjoy myself.

As for the leak itself, the now-yoinked build's listing can still be seen on SteamDB as a "public branch" so, yeah, it looks like someone just pressed the wrong button and uploaded the full-fat 155GB release version in a bootable state. It was just a week early.

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Lest ye be tempted to download… I'd say it's not worth it, but if you fancy a 7,973 year ban then rock on. Forza Horizon 6 releases on May 19, with preorders getting early access on May 15. PCG's review will be here Thursday and I can exclusively reveal from our insider source, who will hopefully not be banned for such leakage until the year 9,999, that "it gud."

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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