Six things we really must insist are included in Forza Horizon 6

If you missed it, earlier this way Playground Games have let us know they’re working on Forza Horizon 6, and that it’s set in Japan. That location has been frequently requested by fans over the years, so either the studio’s been listening or a remarkable coincidence has taken place.

With further details absent at this stage, we’re left to ponder. Specifically, to ponder all the other things we’ve requested as fans of one of racing’s premiere franchises. Things which fell on deaf ears previously, because they weren’t feasible, or were silly, or were so specific that there’s absolutely no way it even occurred to anyone to include.

However, if fans can manifest Japan into becoming FH6’s location, they (we) can do anything. So these are our demands, Playground Games. Thanks for making an absolutely brilliant new open world racing game every few years for over a decade and everything, but we’ve got to get strict now.

“Are you coming?”

That’s your partner/parent/friend/parole officer. You said you’d be down at eight to watch that show, or go out, or adhere to your community supervision order. The thing is, though, you planned to have a few online races in Forza Horizon 5 first.

You started this endeavour half an hour ago. You entered a ranked point-to-point racing lobby in the S1 class, and then waited. And then for a bit longer. And then - oh, you’re being taken into the lobby now, that’s good. Now you’re in the lobby for quite a while, looking at a list of avatar names that range from perplexing to outright offensive. No racing has taken place. It’s 8.01pm. Back to the clink for you.

Forza Horizon multiplayer has been a bit janky for several instalments now. We’re not talking about the games of vehicular tag – don’t worry, we’ll get onto that – but rather the online code itself that’s responsible for matchmaking people and getting them into lobbies promptly. There’s just too much waiting around, and if it happens again, we don’t care if Playground builds a 1:1 scale replica of Japan in its entirety. We’ll be annoyed.

This one’s a no-brainer. Racing in Japan means lots of drifting, and lots of haring down narrow woodland roads in intense one-on-one duels. It feels nailed-on that FH6 will make a feature of this in some way, but the devil’s in the details. The way those twisty roads are sculpted for maximum drama. The rules - will we be chasing down a leader to close a gap, or setting individual time trials, or both? And exactly how much cherry blossom will there be while we do so? We need these questions answered.

As we alluded to moments ago, it’s not just the net code that lets down certain aspects of online play in the series as it currently stands. The roster of Horizon Arcade events – these are the more lighthearted minigames that focus less on racing and more about objectives, like capture the flag – needs a shake-up. From FH4 to FH5 it was pretty much a copy-paste job, and our patience was already wearing thin for playing tag in a Jeep Wrangler two games ago.

It’s time to inject some imagination into this mode. Or failing that, just nick the 28-player, three-phase ‘grand races’ from The Crew Motorfest and replace Arcade with that.

Building world maps is a real strength of this series. It’s especially impressive how much variety Playground packs into the map, giving you a sense of travelling between distinct regions on an epic road trip when in fact you’re covering roughly equivalent ground to your real-life drive to the local co-op.

If there’s been one chink in the armour up to this point though, it’s in the way Forza Horizon depicts big cities. FH4’s Edinburgh is the high tide mark. It’s strikingly authentic to the real location, and it takes up just enough space on the map to come across as a believable city where people might live and work.

Tokyo’s the third-biggest city in the world by population, with some 41 million residents. We’re not saying we want to be stuck in traffic jams and stung by bus lanes and ULEZ charges whenever we visit it in FH6, but we do want to be awed by its scale, please.

Look, one really can’t find fault with this series’ car list. It’s the best in the whole racing genre. In FH5 the total stands at over 900, and it’s always been good at picking out ‘90s rarities like the Renault Clio Williams, Toyota MR2 GT, and Ford’s racing-spec Puma, of which 500 of a planned 1,000 were ever built.

But as the post-launch content in FH5 increasingly focuses on electric hypercars and Hoonigan oddities, we need FH6 to redress the balance by including completely pedestrian hatchbacks like you’d have seen in a Safeway car park circa 1995. We’re talking basic spec Saab 9-3s, Fiat Bravos and the odd Rover 200.

For five games, this series has entertained the utterly preposterous premise of a region-wide ‘festival’ of motoring, in which numerous stages are built and which absolutely nothing happens on. Instead, legions of cars just race around the roads as they please. Imagine buying a ticket to the Horizon festival. Who’s on first? Nobody. What’s happening on the main stage? Some radio DJ talking about how much racing’s going on everywhere. Where are the toilets? There are none.

Now, obviously, as a festival participant rather than a spectator, this isn’t a problem for you as the player. You get to do whatever you like, whenever you like. But it’s time to give something back.

Let’s see some actual live music performances in FH6. No, honestly, it could work. Remember Travis Scott’s virtual gig in Fortnite? Picture that, except everyone’s pulling up in their modded Supras to watch the show.