Forza Horizon 6 Hits 300K Concurrent Players. Forza Motorsport Is Apparently Dead. These Are Related.
300,000 people playing a Forza game on Steam at the same time. Let that sink in. Forza Horizon 6 launched and immediately cracked Steam's top 5 most played games, sitting above Apex Legends and Slay the Spire 2. It's behind Dota 2, PUBG, and Counter-Strike 2, which honestly is not bad company to be trailing.
Oh, and it has giant mechs, kei trucks, and Babymetal in it. This is not your dad's racing game.
The Turn 10 Situation Makes This Land Different
Here's the context. Fred Russell, a former Turn 10 employee, said publicly that the Forza Motorsport series is dead. Jason Schreier reported Microsoft layoffs cut Turn 10 in half. The simulation-focused half of the Forza franchise is apparently a casualty of Microsoft's budget knife.
Playground Games, the studio behind Horizon, is doing just fine. 300K concurrent players on Steam before any patches or word-of-mouth had time to build is a pretty clear statement about which direction the franchise is going. The arcade side won. The sim side got gutted. Make of that what you will.
What's Actually In It
618 vehicles at launch. Giant mechs. Kei trucks. Babymetal. Someone at Playground has clearly been given permission to get weird with it, and the numbers suggest people are into it. The game broke series records on PC before it even launched, which is either a testament to how good the marketing was or how hungry people are for a new open world racer.
PC Gamer's EIC Phil Savage reviewed it and gave it 84%. That's a "this is good" score, not a "clear your schedule" score. Sounds about right for Horizon. They've always been fun, competent, and not especially memorable. The formula works. It's just not going to change your life.
The Launch Problems
Playground already had to put out a blog post addressing drivatar AI difficulty, crash bugs, and optimization. That's a lot to acknowledge in week one. Drivatar difficulty has been a recurring complaint in this series, so hopefully they're actually fixing it rather than just acknowledging it exists.
If you're on PC and thinking about jumping in early, expect some roughness. These things usually get patched. Waiting a few weeks is probably the smarter move if you're not in a hurry.
Should You Play It
If you've liked previous Horizon games, this sounds like more of that with 618 cars and significantly more chaos. That's a yes for most people who enjoy open world racing.
If the Horizon formula has never clicked for you, the numbers and scores aren't going to change that. It's the same loop. Just bigger.
The launch issues are real but probably temporary. The weird content sounds genuinely fun. And whatever happened to Forza Motorsport, Playground is clearly still making things people want to play.
Source: Pcgamer