Forza Horizon 6’s Open World Supports Time Attacks, Drag Races, and…Vibe Driving – IGN First

They say every day is a school day. Today I learned a new term; one I’ve never heard in 23 years of writing about racing games, and nearly 40 years of playing them.

The term? Vibe driving. The meaning? Well, for Playground it describes the actions of players who just hop in a car, plant their foot on the pedal, and cruise through the open world.

“We know from multiple games now that there are so many players who just vibe drive; they just go from place to place in their car experiencing the world,” explains design director Torben Ellert. “So making a world that was both authentic to what Japan feels like, but was also rewarding for players to drive around in, was something we really wanted to do this time.

We know from multiple games now that there are so many players who just vibe drive; they just go from place to place in their car experiencing the world. “Part of that comes from the fact that telemetry tells us that we’ve got this huge cohort of players who just drive but, as you know, the campaigns in the previous games were quite hooked to specific things. And the players who were just driving, they didn’t have a lot of cars [and] they didn’t have a lot of credits, because they weren’t engaging with the game’s structured campaign of progression.”

Playground Games has previously discussed its tweaked approach to the core campaign of Forza Horizon 6, which discards the concept of arriving at the Horizon Festival as an established superstar. In Forza Horizon 6 you will find yourself in Japan as a tourist, with no initial association with the Horizon Festival. It’ll only be as you successfully complete the qualifying events that you’ll earn a wristband to enter the big show as an accredited festival racer.

What’s set to follow will be a much more curated racing experience, graduating through the Horizon Festival’s coloured wristband tiers through the car classes – which have been inspired by the very first Forza Horizon game. As a result, Forza Horizon 6’s highest car classes will be off-limits within the confines of the festival’s event structure until much later in the game. The idea here, it seems, is a more overt (and potentially more rewarding) sense of progression.

What appears to have made these changes to the campaign flow possible – without compromising the freedom the Forza Horizon series regards as a core pillar of its identity – are the ways in which Forza Horizon 6 will go about rewarding play elsewhere.

“While we do have a festival campaign that is a bit more structured than we’ve done in the past, we really wanted to just have things to do as you drove around in Japan,” says Ellert. “That brought us to this language of ‘Discover Japan’, that really serendipitously turns out to be the Japanese tourist agency’s tagline, ‘Japan: Endless Discovery.’ That was neat.”

While we do have a festival campaign that is a bit more structured than we’ve done in the past, we really wanted to just have things to do as you drove around in Japan. Ellert recalls feedback from players in the wake of the release of Forza Horizon 4, confused about the lack of things to do on the map.

“Hearing back from players who people knew, like, ‘Oh, I started the game and I drove to Edinburgh, and there was nothing on the map,’” he says. “Uh-oh. Well, it’s because quite literally you didn’t do Tarn Hows. If you don’t do Tarn Hows the game doesn’t click over and give you the next thing.”

However, instead of twisting arms to get players to engage with a single method of proceeding, Ellert explains it felt better to design Forza Horizon 6 in a way “that would lift people” who chose to play it their way.

“On the one hand I think it comes down to this desire to have things that are just organically in the world as you drive around,” he says. “Those obviously can be vistas that you can see, or cool bits of road that you can encounter, but connecting them to gameplay systems was really important because that creates more engaging experiences.

“So I think one answer for it is from that point of view: make things that you discover that are playable, just in the world. You reduce the friction; you make it easier to do something together with other people.”

The “something” that I’m demonstrated today is Forza Horizon 6’s new time attack driving.

“Time attack is a brand new feature for Forza Horizon 6,” explains lead game designer Dave Orton. “It’s a shared-world feature where it’s all about getting the fastest lap time possible on these incredible grassroots circuits across our map.

“They’re quite varied. You might have an off-road one, you might have a track-focused one. And really, at its core, you are setting a lap time and then trying to beat that every time. And we have splits that show you getting faster or slower, and every time you do a lap you get credits and XP as well. That’s the solo experience, and there’s kind of a loop where you can just hot lap for as long as you want.”

However, time attack takes on a new dimension when playing with or around others.

“Really it’s a place where we’ve seen other players gather,” Orton continues. “It’s a place of activity. I go back to that shared-world energy that you get from real players. This is a hotspot where you’ll find other players who are also hot lapping.

“We also have these in-world leaderboards that track the best times across the community, and that is filtered to your PI class. These are actually grounded, in-world leaderboards. You’ll see the top three times across the community at your PI, and you’ll see your time – so you’ll always see your name; you’ll always see your car with your livery, and where you rank on that leaderboard.

“You can also see your rival as well, and the way that that rival system works is it will always prioritise your friends. So you might be driving past, and then you can see that one of your friends has actually topped your score. All within the world; you just see, ‘My friend’s there and they’re ahead of me,’ and you can go in and try and beat them. It’s a system that, when we put it in the game, we’ve just continually built upon it and got it to where it is now. The moment we put time attack in and had something tracking your lap time, we knew we were onto something. Then we started adding deltas of your lap time, then we started adding splits, then we started adding the combos. And we’ve developed this feature to be something that we’re really, really excited to play.”

The moment we put time attack in and had something tracking your lap time, we knew we were onto something. Engaging with time attacks in Forza Horizon 6 is a completely seamless experience. You don’t need to drive to a marker in the world, activate it, and get loaded into a lobby. You just drive out to one of the map’s permanent race circuits, drive into the precinct itself, and then drive onto the track. At that point, you’re racing.

“We’ve also got a time attack circuit on Legend Island, and it’s incredible,” says Orton. “So as you work your way through the campaign and become a Horizon Legend, you have access to this brand new area, and there is a fantastic time attack circuit on there. So I’m really excited to see what people do on that.”

Finding organic ways to reward players for things they were already doing was a key driver behind the addition of time attack.

“Horizon is a game that means a lot to many people, and it means different things to different people,” says Ellert. “There are people to whom really clean, technical racing is everything. And you have people who just want to drive around. You have people who want to build, or people who want to take photos. There are many people and many different ways to play a Horizon game.

“In previous games we’ve moved to a broader kind of campaign that says, ‘Whatever you do will progress you.’ And for this game, we wanted to be able to lean into that in a way that was very much driven by where you drove. If you could find it, it was a thing, you could do it. If you can find a street race somewhere in Tokyo City, you can do that street race immediately. There’s no gating to it. And because we had that freedom – because you could just drive off and take some photos or drive off and do one of the Horizon Stories – that meant that we had a full progression system that afforded those players a way to play the game.

“It meant that we could then say, ‘Okay, what if Horizon Festival races actually were gated by progression? What if you had to use C-class cars and B-class cars and then A-class, before you could get a chance to use your S1s, your S2s or your Rs? You had to move up through the ranks. Because we had the ability to say, ‘Look, if all you want to do is vibe drive, the game will absolutely let you do that, and reward you for doing that, and give you progression for doing that. It meant that we could apply more structure to the festival's fantasy in the world.”

If all you want to do is vibe drive, the game will absolutely let you do that, and reward you for doing that, and give you progression for doing that. “Let’s say you're at the B-class wristband,” says Orton. “If you’ve got an S1, you can still take that round in the free-roam world. You can still take that to the shared-world experiences. You take it to your street races, time attack. But when you go into the Horizon Festival wristband campaign, that’s when the restrictions come in.”

“I think the really nice thing about it is that it speaks to something that players do anyway,” says Ellert. “Much like the drag meets feature, we know players love synchronised drag lights. They love to see whose car is fastest.

“And by finding ways to just lightly roll in systems that can make that a more rewarding thing to do, it feels like, instead of saying to players, ‘No, come little friend; we must go and do this now,’ it’s more like, hey, keep doing the things that you’re already doing, and there are these systems that come into place to make that a more rewarding experience. Horizon is better together, right?”

We’re not shown a demo of the Forza Horizon 6’s open-world drag racing in action, but the team reports it will function in the same way as the time attacks.

“Like time attack, it’s all in the shared world,” says Orton. “So you’re not loading out, you’re not matchmaking. We have three drag strips in our world, and all of them have a grid at the start and it’s got synchronised lights for every player across the community.”

“You can rock up to a grid, you can ready up, and say, ‘I want to drag race.’ That will put you in your grid, and then you just wait for the green light. So, at that point, you can hold the e-brake and get your throttle up. And then as soon as that light goes green, if you pull off, you get thrown into a drag meeting. It tracks your time. Similar to time attack, you’ll get credits and XP every time. You make your way back, and you go again.

“They also have the same in-world leaderboard tech as well. So you’ll see the best drag racers in the community, you’ll see your time, you’ll see your rivals. And the great thing about those in-world leaderboards for time attack and drag meets is they reset each week. So there’s a new routine that players can have where, every time the season changes, you can go and put your name up on the board again.”

With time attack and drag racing checked, the next logical step would be drifting, would it not?

“Yeah, we’re very excited about that as well,” grins Orton. “That’s all I’ll say.”

“For what it’s worth, now we’ve got events that can occur in free roam, it’s just changed the way we think about our experiences going forward in Horizon. There’s a neuron in all our brains going, ‘Right, we’ve got something here.’ So, yeah, watch this space.”

For what it’s worth, now we’ve got events that can occur in free roam, it’s just changed the way we think about our experiences going forward in Horizon. There’s another layer to the open-world experiences of Forza Horizon 6, and that’s the game’s new link skill system. Forza Horizon fans are no doubt very familiar with the skill point system, and how it’s tied into earning and unlocking car perks, multipliers, bonuses, and even exclusive cars. This time around, however, you’ll get a buff on skill points by earning the same skills as other nearby players at the same time.

“So our skill system touches everything you do,” explains Orton. “If you smash through a gate, you get a wreckage skill. It’s a really compelling loop as you just vibe drive and drive around in our game. And we wanted to create multiplayer experiences from our skill system.

“So with link skills, if you perform the same skill with someone else, you get rewarded with a link version of that. So if I’m tandem drifting with Torbin, we get a link drift. If we’re going down the freeway as fast as we can, we get a link speed. And it’s such a frictionless way to connect with other players. You’re just playing the game near someone else and, just by doing that, you’re getting rewarded for it.

“As you are around other players and just playing the game you’ll have these soft attractors that reward you for sticking together. And our link skill system is just that, all the way up to if you do a 12-player barrel roll, you’ll get a version of that. And I want to see people do that!”

“It’s fully systemic,” adds Ellert. “So, yes, there are places where it’s more likely to happen, which is why we looked at the time attack. You’re much more likely to see speed and drift there but, at a danger sign; you go off that danger sign together, you’re going to get link air.”

“And drag meets: link burnout skills,” says Orton. “It’s just a really nice way of just rewarding you for being around other people without you really thinking about it.”

Forza Horizon 6’s aftermarket cars are an adjacent concept sprinkled into the open world. They’re cars that you’ll come across, parked up and available for purchase from within the open world itself. As part of today’s demo, a customised Honda S2000 is sitting near the entry of one of the time attack circuits. As players, we’ll be able to roll up to these and purchase them – and either send them to our garages or hop behind the wheel immediately.

“Because that system always looks at the kinds of cars that you could afford, the state of your campaign, you are almost always going to see a car that is relevant to the thing you’re about to do, and it’s cheaper than buying it at the Auto Show,” says Ellert. “So it’s the optimal way to expand your car collection. And you get this benefit of, you see the thing in the world. It’s better than just a piece of UI.”

“Yeah, there’s something about seeing the car in the world,” agrees Orton. “There’s kind of an allure to it.”

For his part, Orton regards the addition of things like seamless time attack and drag racing in the open world, plus the link skill system, as an evolution on the shared-world Horizon Life feature of Forza Horizon 4.

“That completely changed the way you experience Horizon,” he says. “With real players and real people, you get this unexpected fun, and the slight randomness of real people that you can’t recreate anywhere else. That’s an energy that we wanted to just capture and continue to improve on. So, with things like time attack and our link skill system, it’s really creating systems that draw players together so that we have more of those fun encounters with other players.

With things like time attack and our link skill system, it’s really creating systems that draw players together so that we have more of those fun encounters with other players. “And we know that a load of players spend their time in this state, in this free roam space of other players. So we knew there are players there we can get features for. And really it was kind of a synergy of, we know there are players in the space, and we know we want to draw players together with more systems that encourage you for just driving around and exploring.

“And I guess a final point as well; the players who are in this space, we want to give them more ways for them to earn credits and XP. Previously, the best way to do that was to go into an event and load out and whatnot. But really now, if you just stay in that space and you’re hot lapping on time attack, or at drag meets, you’re earning credits and XP just from doing that. And that was another reason. Because then suddenly you have more credits. You can buy more cars, you can buy more aftermarket cars. So your garage gets bigger. And then you start to see the breadth of our driving experiences, all within the same space.”

IGN will have plenty more on Forza Horizon 6 throughout March, including a deep dive on its Japan-based map, a look at the game’s new customisation, and more.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.