Forza Horizon 6 reviews are in, mostly positive with some caveats

Early reviews for Forza Horizon 6 are out, and for the most part, the game looks quite promising. In our first impressions video, we compared the performance on an RTX 5060 gaming laptop and one with an RTX 5090. The game is well-optimized (check out our benchmarks), looks stunning, and is fun to play, but there are some aspects that could leave racers wanting for more.

With the review embargo lifted, several channels have released their reviews after testing the game for a couple of weeks. In Digital Foundry’s review, John mentions that the game is “beautiful but empty,” pointing to the wider roads with minimal traffic. While Tokyo has been recreated really well in Forza Horizon 6, the streets feel empty. This was the larger community's feedback as well after the first gameplay footage dropped.

On Xbox consoles, both the Series X and S, the game looks and runs great. Pop-in is an issue, but not as much as Forza Horizon 5, John notes. Also, consoles don’t get the full ray tracing feature set when compared to the PC version. The Japan “festival” seems to have the exact same presentation as Forza Horizon 5’s Mexico festival.

For a more technical preview, Hardware Unboxed tested the game on 8 GB and 16 GB VRAM versions of an RTX 5060 Ti. The results were not very surprising as the 8 GB variant struggled to reach 60 FPS at 1080p with DLSS quality and the Extreme + RT (ray tracing) preset. However, the 16 GB variant was 56% faster with average framerates in the low 70s. At these settings, Forza Horizon 6 demands around 12 GB VRAM. We found similar results with our RTX 5060-powered Lenovo Legion 7a, with the game running at around 37 FPS at these settings.

That being said, the Extreme preset (without RT) + TAA looks pretty good and delivers a solid 64 FPS average at 1080p, so those with limited VRAM can use that as a starting point to tweak settings. Furthermore, FG (frame generation) helps greatly with 4x FG, pushing framerates to over 120 FPS. Overall, Forza Horizon 6 is looking like a great addition to the series. It is releasing on May 19 on Xbox consoles and PC.