Forza Horizon 6 has already reached an impressive player count on Steam despite its official launch still being days away.
Although publisher Xbox Game Studios and developer Playground Games won’t officially pull their latest open-world racing game out of the garage until next week, those who own the pricier Premium Edition have already started taking advantage of early access, which launched for PC (Xbox App, Steam) and Xbox Series X and S today, May 15. Despite the bundle’s $119.99 cost, the Steam version has already reached an impressive peak of 172,093 users (via SteamDB) and is hovering around 160,000 players as of this article’s publication.
That puts Forza Horizon 6 head-and-shoulders above the Steam launch for Forza Horizon 5, which managed to pull in a little more than 80,000 players for its all-time peak in November 2021. It’s unclear if the Xbox racer is on a path to attract even higher player counts today or through the weekend, but there’s a pretty good chance we’ll at least see that number go up when its official release date rolls in next week.
Steam, which represents just one slice of the platform pie that makes up the Forza Horizon 6 player base, currently ranks the open-world racing game at number two on its list of top-selling games globally. Subnautica 2, which launched yesterday to even more impressive stats, is the only game above it.
Five years after Xbox and Playground took players to their version of Mexico with the last installment, Forza Horizon 6 finally lets drivers loose in streets inspired by locations in Japan. It’s a setting that seems to be at least partially responsible for its roaring success out of the gate following the strong reviews published yesterday. We here at IGN also found a lot to love about Playground’s latest, as we called it a “Masterpiece” in our 10/10 review. “The new standard in open-world racing is here, and it’s a gundamn masterpiece,” we said.
If you’re playing, you might have noticed that shrines, temples, and cherry blossom trees are indestructible. Well, there’s a very good reason for that.
The base Forza Horizon 6 experience launches across PC and Xbox Series X and S on May 19, 2026, and costs $69.99. You can catch up on everything you need to know about the Xbox game’s launch plans here. You can also check out the first Festival Playlist rewards ahead of their launch May 21.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
