Forza Horizon 6 seemingly leaks in new job listing

Forza Horizon 5 was released six months ago to universal critical acclaim. Considering it’s the biggest Xbox game launch in history and attracts millions of monthly players, a sequel is inevitable.

Playground Games hasn’t announced the first FH5 expansion yet, let alone a sequel. However, a new job listing advertised at Playground Grounds suggests that Forza Horizon 6 is already in development.

Forza Horizon 6 could already be in development

According to a job listing, Playground Games is looking to hire a Level Designer to join the Forza Horizon team and create “fun, playable gameplay experiences” for the “next AAA title.”

While the job listing doesn’t explicitly refer to Forza Horizon 6, the fact the Forza Horizon team is working on a new AAA title suggests that work on a sequel has begun.

This isn’t unusual. Big-budget AAA games take years to develop. Planning and development for sequels often start soon after the last game is finished. Resources are then often split between making post-release content for the last game and working on the sequel.

Where will Forza Horizon 6 be set?

The big question on the minds of most FH games is where will Forza Horizon 6 be set? Over the years, the Forza Horizon series has taken us to Colorado, Southern France, Italy, Australia, and the UK. There were rumours that FH5 was set in Japan, but Playground based the map in Mexico instead.

With that in mind, Japan seems likely a likely location for the next Forza Horizon. Often requested by fans, Japan’s illustrious car culture and diverse environments would be a perfect fit for Forza Horizon. Alas, it’s going to be a long time until we find out the location.

If Forza Horizon 6 is in development, we aren’t expecting to hear anything about Playground Games’ next open-world racing extravaganza for a few years.

With the Forza Motorsport reboot expected to arrive later this year, we expect Forza Horizon 6 to be announced next summer at the earliest and released in late 2023.

However, the gap between FH4 and FH5 was three years, so FH6 may not arrive until 2024. FH5 benefited from the extra development time, featuring the largest car roster in an FH game and cutting-edge visuals, so a longer development time wouldn’t be a bad thing.

As for platforms, we expect FH6 will be current-gen only, allowing Playground Games to fully realise the powerful Xbox Series X hardware.