Six minutes of racing in Japan
The gameplay video shows the game’s prologue: we start behind the wheel of a Nissan GT-R Nismo 2024 on rural roads, before embarking on a race against the Shinkansen. The sequence then moves on to the snow-covered Japanese Alps in a Polaris RZR Pro 4 buggy, then a passage through the mountains in a 1995 Porsche 911 GT2, to finish with the arrival at the festival in a Toyota GR GT. No tutorial, no endless cutsceneÂ: The game starts straight into the action. The announced catalog exceeds 550 vehicles.
The densest map in the series
Playground Games presents this map as the densest and most vertical from the entire Forza Horizon series. It stretches from Tokyo to the snow-capped peaks of the Japanese Alps. The city of Tokyo is five times larger than Guanajuato in Forza Horizon 5, with districts like Shibuya and Ginza.
There are also bamboo forests, beaches, circuits inspired by mythical places (the C1, Mount Haruna, the Nikko Circuit) and seasonal changes. Also new: a system of fog of war
which hides the map and reveals it as you explore. More than 550 vehicles are on the program, the game will be included in Game Pass from launch, and a cross-save will allow you to transfer your progress from Xbox/PC to PS5.
Enthusiastic testers, but one downside
The first feedback from journalists who have had the game in hand is generally very good. Driving, surface physics and the sensation of speed are judged at the level of the best episodes. The models of certain cult cars (Silvia S13, S15, Nissan Skyline R32) have been redone to be more faithful.
On the other hand, several testers pointed out a problem: Tokyo lacks a little life. Traffic is light, and crossing the Shibuya intersection sometimes feels more like a post-apocalyptic movie than the most populated city in the world. Playground still has a few weeks to adjust this before release.
What do we say about it?
Japan was the setting that fans had been asking for for years, and on paper, Playground Games pulled out all the stops: huge map, 550 cars, Touge, mountain races. It’s a playground that makes you dream. Well, on the other hand, a half-empty Tokyo is a bit of a shame for a game that focuses so much on immersion. We’ll see if the studio corrects the situation by May 19. The game is coming to Game Pass from day oneand that’s still cool. I’m so excited.
