Former Codemasters producer and co-founder of Playground Games Gavin Raeburn believes he knows how to create the next generation of racing games and how to take down the juggernaut that is Forza Horizon. On paper, it may seem like Raeburn has his work cut out for him as Forza Horizon 6 is continuing the series tradition of being an absolute sales monster for Playground Games and Microsoft.
The series itself has quickly established itself as a major piece of the Xbox Game Studios catalog, but with Forza Horizon 6, the player excitement appears to already be in overdrive. Finally opening up Playground's take on Japan, Forza Horizon 6 has gotten off to a fast start, smashing a Steam record just from Early Access alone. In addition, the game has achieved more rave reviews from both critics and players alike, surpassing the vaunted 90+ average rating on sites like OpenCritic. Even with so much success already, a new challenger has appeared on the horizon.
"Best Addition to the Franchise So Far" Forza Horizon 6 Players Love New Feature and Want It to Replace the Auction House
With Forza Horizon 6 available in Early Access, players quickly discover a new feature that has already become a fan favorite feature.
Lighthouse Games Developing a "Forza Horizon Killer"
While there have been no shortage of promising games labeled as a "killer" over the years, from the Call of Duty or Halo killers for first-person shooters, to the next big Destiny 2 killer, many games have seemingly fallen short of that ultimate goal. In this case, however, Gavin Raeburn appears to be very confident in what his team at Lighthouse Games can do. Located just down the street from Raeburn's former studio, Playground Games, his current outfit is made up of a lot of former Playground and Codemasters veterans. The studio is also funded by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent, which continues to seemingly add to its total assets like Ubisoft, Bloober Team, FromSoftware, and more.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
In a previous interview with Forbes, Raeburn revealed a bit more about his plans and the reason for ultimately leaving Playground Games, the studio he helped found back in 2009. According to Raeburn, the success of the Forza Horizon franchise has resulted in Playground and Microsoft not wanting to rock the boat with new innovations and evolutions to the game's formula. While each Forza Horizon entry adds new features, ultimately, the core formula is similar, allowing players to explore the open world, taking part in races and other activities. It was this conservative mindset which ultimately pushed Raeburn to leave the company and, while he admits the series will likely continue to see success, he believes that companies like Playground and Ubisoft's Ivory Tower continue to make mistakes.
Unfortunately, Raeburn didn't reveal any of his ideas for how he plans to innovate in the open world racing space. However, he did go on to promise that what Lighthouse is planning will be "just as big a jump as Horizon was from Dirt 2." He's also very confident that no other studio has the ideas that he and his team are working on. Either way, it appears the racing genre is about to heat up as other competitors enter the space, including an expected new entry in The Crew, as well as a brand-new racing IP from another former Playground employee, the former creative director of Forza Horizon 5, Mike Brown, and his team at Maverick Games.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
It's also worth noting that the launch period is really just the start for Forza Horizon 6. As past games have shown, Playground Games has plenty of content, both premium and free, set to launch in the months and even years down the road. In fact, Playground Games has already teased future content plans for Forza Horizon 6, including the Italian Passion Car Pack set for July, the PS5 version, as well as two large-scale expansions.
Forza Horizon 6
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 91/100 Critics Rec: 100%
- 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
