Forza Horizon 6 Shatters Records With $140M Early Access Launch

Forza Horizon 6 has posted the largest pre-launch commercial performance in the racing franchise's 14-year history, with early-access numbers that already eclipse Forza Horizon 5's lifetime Steam peak. Early access opened on May 15 for buyers of the $119.99 Premium Edition or the $60 Premium Upgrade for existing Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscribers. According to a screenshot of the in-game Hall of Fame leaderboard circulated by DayOne and reported by Insider Gaming, around 1.2 million players had logged in by the weekend, putting Premium Edition revenue at approximately $140 million before the standard release.

On Steam, Forza Horizon 6 set a new franchise record on May 15 with a peak of 172,093 concurrent players, climbing to 181,775 by May 17, according to SteamDB. The figure is more than double Forza Horizon 5's all-time peak of 81,096, set on the first Saturday after its November 2021 worldwide launch. Forza Horizon 5 did not gate Steam behind a paid early-access window, which makes the comparison sharper: Forza Horizon 6 hit the record entirely behind a $120 paywall.

Pre-order activity tracked the same trajectory. Alinea Analytics reported in mid-April that Forza Horizon 6 had passed 500,000 Steam pre-orders by April 15, generating an estimated $30 million in gross revenue on that storefront alone. The same firm projected the game could exceed 2 million Steam sales in the first 24 hours after its standard launch. Those numbers exclude console pre-orders, Microsoft Store activations and Game Pass subscriptions.

Japan setting drives critical reception

Forza Horizon 6 currently sits at the top of OpenCritic's 2026 rankings with a 91 Top Critic Average across 104 reviews and a 100% critic recommendation rate. On Metacritic, the game holds a 92 with a Must Play badge, tying Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Horizon 4. It is ahead of the next-best 2026 releases, Omega Force's Pokémon Pokopia and Big Egg's Lost and Found Co., both at 90 on OpenCritic.

The game's Japan setting, which fans had requested since the series' first entry in 2012, includes a stylised version of Tokyo, rural prefectures and mountain roads, with a launch roster of more than 550 cars. IGN scored it 10/10, calling it the series' best-looking and best-sounding entry. Eurogamer and Giant Bomb both awarded it 5/5. GameRant gave it 9/10. Player reception on Steam is more mixed: the game holds a Mostly Positive rating at 78% positive across all reviews, rising to 85% among English-language reviews, with negative Simplified Chinese reviews accounting for much of the drop.

Forza Horizon 6 launches worldwide on May 19 on Xbox Series X|S and PC at $69.99 for the Standard Edition. The same day, it will be available at no additional cost to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. The game has been verified for Steam Deck and optimised for handheld PCs including the ROG Ally. Xbox Game Studios has confirmed a PlayStation 5 version for later in 2026, though no firm date has been set. Forza Horizon 5 was released on PS5 last year, four years after its initial launch.