Forza Horizon 6

I loved Horizon 5, and I did not expect to say 6 is even better. I have always leaned toward sim racing, where a missed braking point costs you the lap, so an arcade festival racer winning me over means something. The world is the reason. I will happily spend an evening on the Series X just driving between events, and on the S95F it looks superb, though the driving would carry it on any screen. Event variety keeps the next race different from the last, and the assists get a lapsed player fast quickly. Fair warning, with so much on the map, picking what to do next can eat ten minutes.

Check your group first. If anyone owns only a PS5, skip this entry. Forza Horizon 6 crosses only between Xbox and Windows PC, which is why it sits at nine on a list about reaching everyone. For groups that do fit, it is the easiest racing night on Game Pass. Convoys let friends cruise together, free-roam events drop you into races without menu diving, and arcade handling forgives mixed skill. Forza on Xbox has long been a habit of mine, and this is the one I would hand to a friend who has never raced online.

Forza Horizon 6 is the one I'd hand to someone who claims not to like open worlds. There's no homework. You pick a car, point it at something interesting in Japan, and the road does the rest. Twenty minutes later I usually can't remember which event I was driving to. I came to it after Gran Turismo 7 and a lot of Need for Speed, and what struck me is how little it asks of you before the fun starts. It ranks third on polish and ease, not depth. Some series regulars have been cooler on it than the technical quality suggests, and if cars bore you, no map will fix that.

I have been driving through Forza games on Xbox for years, so I had to include this one. Convoys let a group cruise the roads of Japan, hop between events and regroup whenever the open lobby gets busy, and racers always do well with friends. Multiplayer is not the main reason to install it, though. The bigger catch is availability. On Game Pass it is currently a PC title, with no console listing. I also would not expect it to run on the modest laptops my LAN group brings. That is why it closes the list.

I have driven in Forza on Xbox for years, so I went in expecting a polished racer and got something closer to a reason to keep the subscription. The open world is beautiful, and the racing underneath it is just as good, which is rarer than it sounds. You can jump in for twenty minutes, win a race, and feel like the evening was well spent. No series knowledge needed. The only catch is that it is still a driving game, so if cars do nothing for you, the pull will be weaker. For almost everyone else, it is the safest first download on the service.

Forza Horizon 6 is the reason I'd point anyone toward Xbox first if racing is what they're after. I've made the same case elsewhere on this site about Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered: a world worth moving through slowly beats one that's just a checklist with scenery, and this is the racing version of that idea. Gorgeous, dense, and genuinely fun to just drive through between events. The festival structure keeps another race, stunt, or discovery close by at all times, and the handling scales cleanly from full assists to something with real weight. No catch. It does ask for time, though. There's enough map and playlist here to swallow a week of evenings if you let it, so go in with a plan rather than open-ended browsing.

I almost left racing games off this list entirely, since 'open world' usually means walking around, not driving through one at 180 mph. Forza Horizon 6 changed my mind. The map is dense with side activities, barn finds, speed traps, photo challenges tucked into corners you'd only find by actually exploring instead of following the GPS line. I own both a Series X and a Series S, and this is one of the few games where the S version barely feels like a downgrade. It runs beautifully on both. The world exists to serve driving, not the other way around, so if you want walkable exploration this isn't it. As a free-roam sandbox on wheels, nothing else comes close.

My PS5 is the console I reach for most these days, but Forza Horizon 6 is the game that got me picking up the Series X controller again. Japan is the setting, and it is genuinely one of the best-looking open worlds on the platform, full of shifting weather that changes how a road actually drives, not just how it looks. The festival structure means you can dip into a ten-minute event or lose an entire evening chasing car collections, and nothing forces you toward the online side if you'd rather stay solo. Even if you're not usually into racing games, this is a must play! This is still the cleanest pick-up-and-play recommendation on Xbox, full stop.

I almost left Forza Horizon 6 off this list. A racer on an open-world ranking felt like a stretch, until I spent an evening driving a dirt road up a mountain just to see where it ended, with no race attached. The Japan-inspired map is gorgeous, and it is open where it counts, because you can point the car at anything and go. It is also one of the best racers around, and the assists let serious racing fans and casual players share a game. It sits tenth because the world has less to find and less to react to than the RPGs above it.