2 months later, your thoughts on FH6?

[N1GHTMAR3]

Today marks two months since Horizon 6 officially released in early access. Now that we’re well beyond the honeymoon period, and with the upcoming Italian Exotics series (and the controversial changes it’s made), how do you feel about the state of the game? Do you still play often, and does the experience live up to expectations?

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I still hop on every week to try out the new cars and play the championships with my friend group. Outside of that, I’ll occasionally check the Daikoku car meet, make custom tracks, or gamble on the Find a Convoy feature to see who else remembers it’s there.

While I am still enjoying myself more than in FH5 and FH4, I cannot shake the nagging feeling that I could be having a lot more fun. As a racer first and foremost, meeting new, like-minded people feels impossible with how limited communication with other players is. Racing custom routes online could be such a breath of fresh air, but there’s no mechanism to do so without already having a sizable convoy gathered. What we have now is still overshadowed by the knowledge of what we used to have, and what the game could be.

[R3L04D]

It hurts to say, but I am pretty bored now. As brilliant as the the map is, it can only do so much heavy lifting. I think the singleplayer content is what’s really holding the game back, especially in the endgame. Stuff like the stories, mascots and billboards are pretty bland one-and-done affairs, and now that we’re six games in, the racing is in dire need for some fresh new ideas.

Personally I always thought endurance races would be a good fit for the endgame, both in solo and co-op. Now implementing it would be no small feat, depending on how grounded the developers would want to make such a mode you’re talking about tweaks to the physics and functioning fully animated pitstops. Another option would be to copy Kaz’s homework and introduce the Goliath Time Rally /s

Unfortunately EventLab has the same problems it did in FH5. It’s impossible to set a perfect driving line for the AI, so making custom routes is useless for solo use. The builder is still tedious to use, and loads of props got cut. Also the playlist is likely gonna be mostly drip fed FH5 cars until the car pass finally wraps up. Series 2 was such a downer that I had more fun making Spotify playlists for each decade as bgm instead of the radio than I did playing the game during the update. Now Series 3 is definitely a nice surprise, and I’m dying to drive that DB7 tomorrow.

Another thing I find especially worrying is the rise in FH6 modding, it’s just making the community even angrier with the developers for not adding particular customization options or features yet.

[Runoff1999]

To echo what R3L04D said, I’m honestly very bored now.

I appreciate an attempt was made at a better single player campaign, but it still felt pretty hollow and soulless compared to Horizon 1. All the side missions just felt busy work, none of which I particularly enjoyed.

Most of the positive changes to gameplay and the UI as well as the completely new features usually came with some sort of drawback that prevented them from being great as opposed to good.

The endgame in particular is extremely dull as well as very grindy, and is a major cause of my aforementioned boredom, probably more than anything else I’ll mention in this list.

The Festival Playlist still feels like a chore, and locking content behind online events is as scummy as ever, though unfortunately not unexpected.

Shenanigans with the car list, which was sadly also not unexpected, is also annoying as ever with cars being randomly cut for no reason and later returning with Playground expecting major fanfare for it, several outdated duplicates long since overstaying their welcome in favor of more interesting cars, the aforementioned cars locked behind online, and the Car Pass just three months in feels extremely bloated with novelty cars and more duplicates as opposed to cars that should’ve been more worth the money.

The soundtrack didn’t interest me in the slightest, but that’s probably the most subjective take anyone can have.

The AI are as terrible as ever, even after the difficulty patch. No complaints about them has been addressed with them in between games. They still cheat a LOT.

There’s nowhere near enough race routes for any of the race types at launch for a map this size, and Cross Country continues to be an extremely broken race type with how the AI operate in addition to the wonky track designs that are often at odds with the physics.

Despite all of my complaints I do still think Horizon 6 is an improvement over Horizon 5. The map in particular is a major highlight. Playground opting for a tall map rather than a wide map was definitely a wiser choice. I’m also really glad seasons actually have a pronounced effect on the map again. Autumn in particular looks very stunning.

Though I’m honestly still getting used to them, particularly braking before cornering, I do also appreciate that the newer “more realistic” physics, at least on asphalt.

That being said, however, I definitely think the “Hey, it’s Forza again, but this time on a different map” joke that I often see floating around online is very much true at this point. These games haven’t really innovated in a truly substantial way in well over ten years, and if the cracks were showing in Horizon 5, they’re positively leaking in Horizon 6 despite a better foot being put forward.

I’d like to see a completely new Horizon game in the future, actually built from the ground up, if we end up getting a Horizon 7. However, given the state of the video game industry right now, and Microsoft in general, not only do I fear Horizon 7 won’t be different from its predecessors, but we might not even get a Horizon 7 at all too, but that’s a subject for another time as the world changes.

[PlageBLN]

I don’t really care for the SP stuff and especially the story related things. I’m only playing since FH4 but the stories inlcuding voice acting, cut scenes and so on were always dull so I wasn’t expecting much.

The Japan theme (if you want to call it like that) is nice and I tremendously enjoy driving around the map. It’s done really well in my opinion and is by far the best of the Horizons I’ve played so far. Adding the race tracks was a good decision and I see quite some action there when I’m visiting one of them.

The driving itself seems better. I actually feel an improvement in the wheel when it comes to feedback. This could be related to improved tire physics which still isn’t on point but a clear improvement to what we had before IMO.

Online racing is rather meh at this point. I never was a fan of Open racing because of the ghosting, wall penalties and general setup with meta cars and unfair play getting an advantage and it seems it’s possibly even worse now at least when it comes to meta/fomo cars.
Spec racing is much better and a welcome addition. It’s presumably even the most fair when it comes to competitive racing in the game. It definitely has it’s place and I do some races here and there but I’m actually missing something like the Tours in FH5. Something you can bring your own cars but that’s a bit more car class/category based. You know things like “A 800 Super Saloons” or “S1 900 AMG vs. M Power” and so on.
The idea behind MP Touge races is nice but the amount of players quitting if they’ll lose plus the horrible matching makes this mode basically futile.

At the moment I’m spending most of my time painting but I often check what kind of Stunt Party is going at the full hour in between. I mainly do the speed ones but also the others from time to time. It’s a good way for some quick team action and gives some easy money. They way they’ve done it with basically always having a full party of 12 players is nice. I just wish the locations would be announced 5 or 10 minutes before they’ll start like it was in FH4 IIRC. So you could drive there without missing out on action time.

When it comes to the Raku Raku thing. It’s ok to have it but the implementation and how it’s forced for achievements and also the playlist(s) isn’t good. I mean I’d even welcome more job opportunities but not if they’re done that “loveless”.

Car meets are a nice idea but without any incentive to actually go there for the players the feature is rather irrelevant. I presumably saw more people in convoys that stopped at parking lots and so on than I saw cars parked at an actual car meet location.

Then there’re bugs everywhere. It’s good they aren’t game stopping for most of the players but the more time you spend and the closer you look the more they stick out.
The traffic AI alone is a joke and it’s actually outrageous they released it like that. Same goes for the drivatars which are a complete disaster once again.

The truth is it’s more of an empty shell again than it’s an improvement or anything new. Which is a bit sad because it doesn’t has to be like that. The base seems to be there but for what ever reason they don’t seem to have what it needs to really make it feel alive. If you can get what I mean?

[jeff50104]

It’s not necessarily boring for me, but it lacks in many things. PGG tried to add life to things, and i commend them for that, but maybe it was just a little overhyped, if you will.

To echo Runoff’s remark, i also think that there should be a better singleplayer campaign, aside from getting your wristbands, doing stories, and other stuff. By other stuff, I mean Raku Raku. Now, don’t get me wrong, but it just feels repetitive. Or maybe that’s what an actual job feels like, I don’t know. The stories were too easy, i 100%ed all of them with ease. I don’t care about billboards anymore, now that fast travel is free. The races were especially boring. What about for the road racers out there? You’re gonna give us less than 40 road racing events? I know street racing is there, but it’s just straightline speed. And now you cater to rally drivers and offroaders.

The new map, new setting, new ui and everything else feels fresh. That is, fresh out of Corporateville. What I was expecting was a work of passion and love, not just a half-baked-bugged-repeating-game. Some bugs would include the infamous bowie knife, livery editor glitches, clipping through the floor because some truck slammed you into the ground, etc. Festival Playlist still feels the same, although they added playlist history, which gives cars that probably no one will ever drive over their 200+ other cars. They’d just sell it on the AH for 20 mil. The ai still sucks, they ram me off the road in street races on a daily basis. On corners, they just head STRAIGHT for my car. I think I rubberbanded them a little too well. The map is great, it’s big, it has biomes, it has nice roads, but bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better all the time. Japan is a nice place, I get it. But what’s missing is the population. Look to other games, like GTA. It feels alive because there’s people there. In FH6, if you go to Shibuya Crossing, it’s almost like the game was based in covid. At least add crosswalks on the road. If they can, they could add some people walking on sidewalks, not just standing around cheering at nothing.

Most importantly, we need an endgame. After getting the gold wristband, there’s nothing left to do aside from finishing your stamps, doing pr stunts, getting billboards, the whole shebang. After that, there’s nothing left to do. The singleplayer campaign feels dull after that. One good idea I think they should’ve added to the game was a racing career, something like GT7’s.

Anyways, I’m not saying that FH6 is a bad game. I’m just saying it could be better than its current state. DLC expansions will come along at some point, and I think (or hope) they will be fun. Welp, I think I’ve said too much.

[sugarfluffy2]

Things I liked:
The map is great, like others said I really appreciate the verticality, of it, there are a lot of nice roads throughout the map. Early in the game I often found myself wanting to just drive to new events instead of fast traveling since it was so nice to see.

I both like and dislike the progression system. Overall, it is certainly better than what we’ve had in the games leading up to FH6, where you were showered with cars and credits as soon as you booted up the game. It was a big step in the right direction, but I can’t help but feel like I wanted more. I liked that they restricted races to certain wristband levels and the races themselves had restrictions the first time you played, but I feel like they could’ve done a little more with it, especially for dirt/cc races I felt there wasn’t much unique about the restrictions between different races. The writing also definitely felt a little funky. Again, I think it is much better than FH5, but the story was kind of lackluster and didn’t have that spark that FH1 had.

Graphics are amazing (as always). I’m also happy that we get seasons that actually feel like they significantly change the map, unlike FH5.

I think the car sounds are generally a step up from FH5.

Physics are nice to drive with for the most part.

Things I didn’t like:
I wish they didn’t cut so many cars from the car list to drip feed content later. I understand the Festival Playlist system has sort of cemented itself in Horizon, but I’ve never been a big fan of it.

With a map of this size, it’s ridiculous there are so few races. There are entire areas of the map that would make great tracks, and yet there are no races there (or it is a CC race). Especially in Tokyo, there’s like 3 circuits? And one of those is just driving on the highway the whole time. Extremely frustrating because there are lots of good layouts that could’ve been done. I actually counted up all the races in FH6, and across Road, Dirt, CC, Street, and Togue races there are 93 events, plus. And since Street/Togue don’t count towards your main progression, that means 2/3 of the races you need to do to unlock new things are off-road races. Anyway, in FH5 we had: 105 races (across dirt/cc/road/street), 4 midnight battles, 4 showcases, and 7 expeditions. In FH1 we had 70 races (road/dirt), 30 street races, 10 showcases, and 7 1v1s. It’s ridiculous that on such a huge and diverse map there is so little to do in terms of actual content. PGG really dropped the ball on this, and considering they only added 4 sprint races (plus the oval circuit and the winter circuit, but idk if I count those tbh) over the lifespan of FH5, I don’t have much hope we will get more tracks. One of my biggest issues.

Random bugs and glitches. I’ve heard it’s worse on PC.

This has never been a big sticking point for me, but it’s silly that some cars STILL haven’t gotten new scans, especially for ones that from my understanding they sort of hyped up that would get new scans, like the AE86.

Eventlab has seen a lot of props cut, and a lot of seemingly basic ones are just missing. Like you’d think a traffic cone would be a pretty basic one to have, but it is just not in there. It’s also has finicky as ever to work in. You can’t use photo mode in a multiplayer Eventlab, limiting the types of photos you can take in the game. Nor can you use drone mode either. Or cinematic camera. And like others said it is tedious, and the AI is always messed up in their driving line.

Photo mode itself, while I think it is alright, you should be able to do raise your camera more than 4 meters off the ground, that’s so dumb and would be very easy to fix.

I don’t dislike the music selection, but it certainly got old very fast, even with me switching stations. Eventually I just started playing my own music and muted in the in game music.

The livery editor is badly outdated and in need of a revamp. I mean, why are liveries still so pixelated? It’s not 2012 anymore.

Single-player AI is really annoying, crazy rubber banding on high difficulties, very inconsistent between race types and specific tracks, and busted in CC. I shouldn’t need to always be changing my difficulty before every race.

The voice acting for certain characters really made me roll my eyes, it felt like they weren’t even trying or it was the first time they had ever read the script or heard or that car. Especially the Larry Chen story, that was like comedically bad, I felt like I was listening to NBA2K voicelines.

And lastly, I think the customization was a let-down. The new Forza aero looks alright on some newer cars, but it doesn’t fit on older cars as it is a modern aero design. I wish there was an option to just put a splitter and no tow hook. Or to just be able to adjust the other custom wings and not be forced to use Forza aero. They could at least give us the option to customize out wings a little and to use different wing tips and whatnot. I guess it’s just disappointing.

Overall:
FH6 is an alright game, and I would buy it again, but I’m left wanting more.