‘Forza Horizons 6’ Is a Good First Step for the Xbox Renaissance

6 hours ago 2

Xbox was not meant to be a bland brand slapped onto the side of a game-streaming subscription. More and more, Xbox encompasses a full hardware ecosystem: PCs, handhelds, and the long-suffering Xbox Series S/X consoles. The thing lacking in this reinvention of Xbox is games—exclusive games.

Forza Horizon 6, which is set to arrive May 19, stands out as one of those games that draws people to a system—or, in Microsoft’s case, a whole suite of gaming hardware. And Microsoft dropped multiple patches for the Series X, PC, and the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X just in time for the release. PC gamers, in particular, now have access to the so-called Xbox Mode, which provides a UI that’s easier to navigate with a controller, such as your good ol’ Xbox gamepad.

Forza Horizon 6 Pc Gameplay Rtx 5080 Ryzen 7 9850x3d 1

I’ve put rubber to the road for more than a dozen hours in a prerelease version of Forza Horizon 6, splitting my time among all three platforms. The game is a perfectly pitched casual experience that edges far more toward an arcade-style racer than anything with simulationist sensibilities. It’s the kind of game that slides into your life for those few scant hours after work or before bed, excites you for a race or two, and then is stowed away for later.

It would have been the perfect launch game for new Xbox hardware. Ponder that as we twiddle our thumbs and wait for the next-gen Project Helix console—a device that’s supposed to bring PC and console gaming under one roof.

Forza Horizon 6 is built with a casual car fan in mind. I have no interest in automobiles beyond how much my next lease payment will cost me, but the constant feeling of progression, where you earn credits—the in-game currency—for literally everything you do, is like a dopamine IV drip for the brain. Driving without ramming your opponents’ vehicles will grant you more points in total, but sideswiping, brake checking, and everything short of a head-on collision will also grant you points and a score multiplier.

Forza Horizon 6 Xbox Series X Gameplay 1

In the Forza Horizon universe, cars are indestructible behemoths that have no care for trees or barriers. The game grants you points for “landscaping” as you dismantle Japan’s beloved forests on your inexorable path of destruction. Horizon does not model car damage beyond scratches, dings, and busted windows. The cars may look sloppy by the end of a race, but they’ll always end up in your garage as shiny and chrome as the day they rolled off the line. If the question was between having more cars available to buy, find, and drive (more than 550 in total) and fewer vehicles with more detailed destruction, developer Playground Games has always opted for the former.

This casual experience feels baked into the setting itself. The game world is a pastiche of Japan—the landscape and culture are mere decorations. You can drive from one end of the map that’s surrounded by cherry blossoms to another that’s swimming in the deep reds and yellows of autumn. You’re so much of a tourist that early in the game, you buy an akiya, one of those abandoned homes in the Japanese countryside that sell for cheap. Admit it: you’ve daydreamed of fixing up an akiya and living the quiet life. This escapist fantasy would seem manipulative if the air of casual ease weren’t baked into every part of the experience.

This game is about spectacle first and accuracy second. If Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox built its first-person-shooter gameplay around “30 seconds of fun,” Forza Horizon 6 does the same with racing. That’s helped by the wide variety of racing events available. I’ve never enjoyed off-road rally races nearly as much as I did in Horizon 6. That’s especially noteworthy considering that last year, Codemasters announced it was abandoning its long-running Colin McRae and Dirt franchises.

Forza Horizon 6 Pc Gameplay Rtx 5080 Ryzen 7 9850x3d 5

The console, PC, and handheld versions are all effectively the same. The big differentiator is performance. On the Xbox Series X, you can choose between a 30 fps Quality profile that delivers native 4K and a 60 fps Performance setting that dynamically upscales the resolution based on what’s on-screen. There’s a distinct visual quality difference, with Quality mode featuring more accurate real-time reflections on cars and specular highlights. But as you’re rolling at 180 mph, you’ll feel the lag of that 30 fps frame rate.

In my testing, I ran Forza Horizon 6 at 4K resolution using the iBuyPower Trace X RGB R01 PC, packing AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU. When I turned on ray tracing and reflections, the game was simply gorgeous. The light filtering through the trees and bouncing off rain-slicked streets adds to the sense of joy as you tear through the environment at breakneck speeds, without care for humans, beasts, or unfortunate shrubbery.

To get more than 60 fps with every setting cranked to max, I still had to rely on Nvidia’s DLSS. But even without ray tracing enabled (realistic lighting models will naturally tank performance), it’s the cars that stand out most. All the male-presenting human characters look like Cro-Magnon Ken dolls; their brows never tilt into any expression beyond bewilderment that they’re alive. The female-presenting characters are a nightmare of interbreeding between a marionette and a thrift-shop mannequin, with wigs to spare.

Forza Horizon 6 Asus Rog Xbox Ally Gameplay 1

The characters look that way no matter what system you play on. The level of detail in the vehicles was what surprised me most about the gameplay experience on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. By default, the game sets the graphics to High, which averages around 30 fps. I occasionally saw the frame rate dip to around 26 fps, especially when rain particles splashed against the windshield as I drove through water.

To make the experience more console-like, the game selects the Default Game Profile on the Xbox Ally. This is a feature exclusive to first-party Xbox games on the handheld that automatically tailors the TDP (thermal design power) for each title, making the experience as hands-off as possible. This means the handheld is running on Turbo power at around 27W in some scenarios, which is impressive but will drain the handheld’s battery plenty fast. Users who don’t want this to happen, or prefer fine-tuned control, can turn the setting off.

PC will still be the most premium way to play. It offers the best visuals and performance experience. Microsoft has been making strides to offer PC gamers a simpler, more console-like user interface than the typical Xbox app. I had to download the latest Windows Insider beta build to access the new “Xbox Mode,” but once it was installed and enabled in Settings, I didn’t have to do much else. The menus are akin to the “Full Screen Experience” on the Xbox Ally, allowing you to access all your major launchers and games from a single menu. All new windows are full-screen and can be accessed by holding down the Xbox button.

Forza Horizon 6 Asus Rog Xbox Ally Gameplay 3

The big issue with Xbox Mode on PC is how it handles sleep. Thankfully, you can sleep, shut down, and restart the console from the special Xbox menu that appears when you press the Xbox button (or a related key on third-party controllers). If you put the PC to sleep, it will also exit the game you’re playing. This poses a problem in Forza Horizon 6. Every time you start the game anew, you’re teleported back to your “estate” (essentially your customizable home base that includes your garage), which means you have to fast travel back to where you were before or to your next destination.

For now, Forza Horizon 6 is locked exclusively to the Series console, PC, and Windows-based handhelds. Xbox previously declared that the game would eventually arrive on PlayStation 5, just as Forza Horizon 5 did. CEO Asha Sharma and the platform’s new heads have said they are “reevaluating” console exclusivity. The Verge’s Tom Warren recently reported that Sharma is “treading carefully,” and it remains unclear if Forza will stick to Microsoft’s favored platforms.

But Xbox needs games like Forza Horizon 6 for its next big console push. The game already feels like it’s pushing the Series X to its limits, given how much it relies on more modern hardware. If the next-gen Project Helix lives up to its potential, games like Forza would be excellent launch titles. Xbox needs games like Forza Horizon 6 to bridge the gap between the current hardware and whatever comes next.

Read Entire Article