The Series 2 update for Forza Horizon 6 has arrived and makes some important changes to the game, while adding a variety of quality of life improvements to the overall experience. Despite some hiccups along the way, Forza Horizon 6 appears to be another massive success for Playground Games, even before the PlayStation 5 fan base has gotten their chance to dive into the game. At least part of that success can be attributed to the series finally heading to Japan with its diverse biomes to race across.
During the Early Access portion, open only to those who purchased the Premium Edition, Forza Horizon 6 smashed a Steam player record. The game managed to pull in 178,009 players, a number which exploded as soon as the full release arrived days after. Combined with the Xbox numbers, including Game Pass, it would appear that the franchise is once again in very safe hands. Still, even with the player support, Playground Games continues to tweak and evolve the open world map of Japan, with Series 2 set to kick off on June 18.
The update arrives just slightly ahead of the actual launch of Series 2 called Horizon Decades, which brings with it an all-new Festival Playlist to take part in. In terms of this update, Playground Games has continued to make adjustments to the aggressive Drivatar AI in Forza Horizon 6, especially with the behavior at the start of races. Difficulty balancing has also received a pass by the devs at Playground Games to hopefully ensure a smoother experience and one that won't result in Drathful or Bowie_knife99 disturbing any more races for players.
The Festival Playlist has also seen a number of tweaks in this update as well. Players will notice with Season 2 that Daily Challenges can no longer be completed ahead of when they're active, so players won't be able to plan ahead anymore and instead need to wait for them to be active. A developer note also indicates that all Daily Challenge Points in Series 1 will be retroactively rewarded to players for each season they participated in. Keep in mind that players will need to claim the points from the Series 1 playlist in the History menu.
Scratch & Peek
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as possible.
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as possible.
The patch notes end with an additional note on the recent save bug with Forza Horizon 6. While Playground Games previously rolled out a fix for the alarming progress-busting bug, the studio is attempting to further help those who may have been impacted. For players who have experienced any save data loss, the post recommends a visit to a Forza Support article for details on how to get help and more ways to reduce further data loss.
Image via Playground Games
Image via Playground Games
Image via Playground Games
The future of Forza Horizon 6 appears to be bright, as Playground Games has detailed both long-term plans like 2 major expansions, as well as incoming additions. The Series 2 launch on June 18 will feature an all-new seasonal playlist, with 10 Series Reward cars to earn and three badges to unlock. Some cars that will be available will be the 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R, 1989 Volkswagen Rallye Golf, and 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau. Series 2 also brings The Trial back to the Festival Playlist and there's a new Car Meet at the Hokubu Time Attack Circuit to participate in.
GameRant Quiz
Forza Horizon 6 Series 2 Patch Notes
Version Number:
- XBOX Series X|S: 375.327
- Windows PC (Xbox app): 375.327
- Steam: 375.327
Bug fixes and changes
General
- Performance and stability fixes.
- Fixed an issue where launching the game after running Benchmark Mode would take longer than expected.
AI
- Improvements to difficulty balancing.
- Fixed an issue with Drivatar race start behaviour.
Audio
- Improvements to audio performance on lower specification devices.
- Adjusted the volume of the air vents on the 2010 Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SV.
Badge
- Fixed an issue with the Screechy Clean Badge where progress would only count during a Touge Event.
Design
- Fixed an issue where the Leaderboards would sometimes display the wrong drivetrain.
- Fixed an issue with Convoy Leaderboards where times may not appear consistently for all players in the Convoy at Drag Meets and Time Attack Circuits.
Festival Playlist
- Fixed an issue where some Daily Challenges and a Seasonal Job could be completed ahead of time.
- Fixed an issue where completed Weekly Challenges in a previous Season would be missing the Completed label.
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Fixed an issue where various Daily Challenges across the Seasons did not unlock for some players.
- Developer Notes: All Daily Challenge Points in Series 1 will be retroactively rewarded to players for each Season they participated in. To claim these, players must visit Series 1 in their Playlist History.
Horizon Play
- Fixed an issue where some players did not unlock Level 12 in Horizon Play until they entered another race Event.
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Adjustments have been made to the amount of XP required between Level 26 and Level 100 in Horizon Play. This will significantly reduce the time required to earn the ‘Maxed Out’ Achievement.
- Developer Notes: Players who have already made significant progress in Horizon Play (Level 25 and above) will see their level jump significantly and unlock new Badges, and players who have already reached Level 32 will jump to Level 100, unlock Badges and the ‘Maxed Out’ Achievement.
Road Discovery
- Added a Roads Driven percentage to the Region Overview.
- Fixed an issue where two road nodes would never be marked as Undiscovered.
- Fixed inconsistencies in Road Discovery between the Mini Map and World Map.
Visuals
- Fixed graphical corruption noticeable in some loading screen transitions on XBOX Series X|S, especially in Horizon Stories and after completing the Monthly Rivals Event.
- Fixed a motion blur artefact appearing along the rear of the 2001 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI GSR TM Edition.
- Fixed an issue with inconsistent lighting that occurred when switching between times of day in Photo Mode.
- Fixed an issue where green artefacts could be seen when trying to take a photo through a metal mesh fence.
- Fixed an issue where rain particles were disabled in the ‘High’ Graphics Preset on PC.
- Improvements to the pixelated red smoke appearing in Street Races when using upscaling.
Upgrades & Tuning
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Adjustments have been made to the physics of Drag Tires to align them more with their expected behaviour.
- Developer Notes: The team noticed that Drag tires were reducing Performance Index (PI) significantly while still providing enough lateral grip to work effectively as a tire choice for several event types outside of Drag Racing. This is not the expected behaviour or use case for Drag Tires. To alleviate this issue, we have made some adjustments that ensure Drag Tires are no longer the optimal tire choice outside of drag racing events.
Additionally, we have retained the PI cost of Drag Tires, meaning any tune that currently exists, for example, a tune that is A 700 will not change PI, but it will have significantly reduced cornering performance.
The team are aware that this means there are a lot of Leaderboard entries that will need to be removed. This will be an ongoing process as we work to identify and remove any lap times that were set using Drag Tires prior to this patch.
It is important to note that this change only affects the cornering performance of Drag Tires, so Drag times and Drag Leaderboards will be unaffected by this change.
Save issues
If you have experienced any save data loss, we recommend visiting our Forza Support article for more information on how to get help, and ways to reduce the risk of save data loss.
Forza Horizon 6
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 91/100 Critics Rec: 99%
- Released
- May 19, 2026
- ESRB
- Everyone / Mild Lyrics, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases
- Developer(s)
- Playground Games
- Publisher(s)
- Xbox Game Studios
WHERE TO PLAY
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Prequel(s)
- Forza Horizon 5
- Franchise
- Forza, Forza Horizon
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- May 19, 2026
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- May 19, 2026
- Genre(s)
- Racing, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
