Forza Horizon 6

[00:00:09] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Cameron Warren and I'm joined as always by the ephemeral pixel professor Jacob Price. It's May 28th, 2026 and on this episode of Day in the Life of Cameron Warren, Jacob is sitting here in my office desk, okay, grab some lunch, grab a little Greek yogurt

[00:00:37] and berry bowl. It's my standard daily Greek yogurt, nonfat Greek yogurt with the honey, a little bit of chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips and mixed berries from Costco. And I hear a little tippity, tippity tap tap, tippity tap tap tap. Okay. And I look over and what do I see in my windowsill to my right?

[00:01:09] If you're watching this on YouTube, I'm pointing a teeny little mouse trying to get into my house. Oh man. For a second, I thought you're going to say water dripping. And I was like, dude, you're screwed. I mean, that would be almost worse, but so five alarm fire. Of course, I'm like, we're getting invaded. Our houses, we're going to, we're invaded by mice. Like we're moving.

[00:01:33] We're calling pest control. Anyways. So I proceeded to spend the next two hours devising various strategies to extract this mouse. Okay. And I ended up the TLDR. I ended up with a bucket with a jump rope tied to the end with a little bit of peanut butter on the bottom. Okay. That I put down there. And so then I came in to back to my office to see what was going on and noticed that the mouse was no longer moving.

[00:02:02] And I was very irritated by this. And so I decided to crack open the screen. I haven't opened this like office screen window. Well thing in, you know, like since we've moved into the house, probably break that all down. Finally, like corral this mouse into the bucket, get it extracted. Meanwhile, find a dead mouse carcass that's in there. A second mouse body. A second, second mouse that had just died down there. Yeah. Jeez.

[00:02:32] So ended up spending my entire afternoon just cleaning out that sort of inaccessible window well. And later only to realize that I had done that without like a mask on and probably inhaled like dead mouse fumes. So then that kind of freaked me out. So anyway, it's been a fun day. How's your day?

[00:02:49] Um, no dead mouse fumes today. Um, it has been one, oh man, it's been an exhausting day. Let me tell you. Um, you know, every morning now the task falls to be to entertain the children since it is summer vacation for them.

[00:03:08] Um, so we ran a millionarians read a bunch of books this morning. Um, let's see. I, this week just got slammed like unexpectedly with some stuff from work. I'm like, guys, it's summer break. Don't send me anything. We don't need it. We don't need to do anything, but, um, I don't know, just a lot of things going on. Like a student asked me if they could shadow one of my classes and then ask me about my teaching pedagogy.

[00:03:35] And I was like, sure. And I'm like, wait, this is turning into like three hours. Just, um, different things I have, like random things like that, that people don't ask during the school year. They're all asking now. Um, right. So I did a bunch of stuff today and then I did a bunch of adulting also, um, went to a physical therapist to take a look at my ankle. Cause I've never fully recovered from Achilles tendonitis.

[00:03:59] Um, and then got a haircut. No way. And went to the dentist. So I'm a fully grown man. If you're wondering. Wow. Wow. Haircut and dentist in the same day. No, it's been a day. And then, um, uh, let's see. Unbelievable. We are putting the current home that we live in on the market soon.

[00:04:20] So our house is a giant mess of cleaning, little tiny projects, um, putting stuff into boxes. So I've been running around doing that. I feel much like the dead mouse in your solar window today. You feel like the dead mouse in the window. Fair enough. You know, fair enough.

[00:04:47] Uh, yeah, you are an adult. That's basically all I did today. I did a little bit of work, but you know, does that really count? What is work even maybe, or maybe not helped do some reports for some so-called video games that we work on at Sony PlayStation. Take a guess as to what those are. I cannot reveal. Uh, Sly Cooper three and a half.

[00:05:14] Sly Cooper three. It's confirmed here first. No, um, no, Jake, uh, we got some crazy news. So two, two pieces of news I wanted to talk about real quick. So the first one is we are getting officially, this was rumored like pretty heavily, heavily rumored. So it was kind of just a matter of time till we were going to see it, but confirmed new Witcher three expansion, full blown expansion in 2027.

[00:05:45] To bridge the gap and get people hyped up for the Witcher four, presumably what in 2028 probably is my guess. I don't know, dude. I mean, I mean, I guess this, this was one of those rumors to me that just sounded dumb. No offense to the rumor people out there. Cause you were totally right on this, but didn't the Witcher three come out? You didn't think, you didn't think that there was, it was real. Like you didn't think that they would do, it was like the game's too old. Like it doesn't make sense.

[00:06:11] Honestly, I thought that if this were, that this rumor would have been more of like a Spider-Man Miles Morales situation, like a, like a standalone 10 hour campaign, um, sent to Witcher universe to get people hyped again. Um, and to kind of maybe bridge this jump from Witcher three to Witcher four. Um, I don't know. Maybe that's asking too much to do just like a whole new game from scratch than it is versus like doing a DLC.

[00:06:38] But I imagine that CD project red is looking at their numbers and they're like, yep, everybody has downloaded the Witcher three at some point. So why don't we, because it's on sale now for like four bucks for like the deluxe edition at this point. So I think I saw something. The Witcher three has sold 65 million copies. What? I'm serious. 75 million units.

[00:07:08] Wait, 75. 75 million. Okay. Franchise sales. Sorry. The Witcher three alone has sold over 65 million units. My goodness gracious. See, this is why I believe that the expansion was a total like realistic thing, because this is one of those games that has generational legs that just will not go away.

[00:07:37] Like people continue to talk about the Witcher three. Yeah. Like hold it up as like the holy Bible of video games. I got to say it actually inspired me. I'll be honest. I said this in the discord and I was like, hey, convince me to play heart of stone and blood and wine. And some people jumped in there. And some people jumped in there. And I got to say, I was convinced. I think I'm going to give it a shot. I think I'm going to try and play these expansions. Jake. From what I understand, I'm pulling up how long to beat right now.

[00:08:06] I don't think that they're that long. Oh, no. They're long. I mean, how long is long? Let's see. Blood and wine. Oh, blood and wine is like 40 hours. Hold on. Hold on. Blood and wine. The main story on how long to be is 15. Completionist is 40. Oh, OK. Heart to stone. Dang. Still 10 hours. Dude, who has time to make? So maybe if you mainline, you're looking at what? 25 to 30 hours of additional content.

[00:08:34] That's over half of what the Witcher three is normally. Dude, I think what I will do is I think I will because I own these also is I'll kick this down to the easiest mode and just play it for the story. Because that's like people are discord. That's what they're saying. They're like some of the best stories in here. I don't think I'm going to make myself suffer unnecessarily because the combat, the combat sucks in the Witcher three. Non-controversial opinion. You know, hot take. I actually thought it was pretty OK.

[00:09:06] Dang. I guess that's not a hot take. My take is I don't like the combat in the Witcher three. I try really hard to like the combat and I just can't. But I might try again. I think that there's they do some stuff to the combat. I believe in the expansions. I mean, it's like largely the same. I think they add a couple of pieces. But anyway, I mean, I might give this shot, Jake. I'm I'm I'm intrigued and I have not played the expansions. I beat the main story. But that's it. No, I think I will, too. And maybe we'll we'll talk about them, too.

[00:09:35] But like, yeah. Wild to me, it's a DLC. I mean, how much do you think? You know, they're going to sell like a new complete edition that has all three DLC and the base. So how much could that cost? The develop the new expansion? How much is it going to cost? Like how much do you think the new DLC will cost? And then they're going to have a new complete edition with everything, including this new deal.

[00:09:59] Oh, do you think it's gonna be like, what, 20 bucks in my my my guess is because see Project Red just typically is very customer friendly is what they'll do is they'll make this expansion. Twenty dollars and then they will not change the price of the complete edition. Oh, and then it just comes with the complete edition. It just comes with the complete. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or they'll change the skew and then it will.

[00:10:27] But if you own I think if you own it already, like you'd have to pay the 20 bucks. I don't know. Maybe they'll raise the price. Anyway, it's going to be very customer friendly. I don't think it's going to be like a big cash grab. Also, the developers at CD Project are make it very clear that these are not DLCs. They are expansions. And they're very clear about how they use that terminology because they don't think of them as DLCs.

[00:10:52] They think of them as expansions, like full blown because they they feel like that term has been muddy, which I think it has. Honestly, that also feels to me like very 2000s. That kind of mindset. Yes. Totally. Totally. I mean, yeah, we don't get 20, 30, 40 hour additional content expansions nowadays. Yeah, we really don't. Even BG3 was going to have an expansion originally and then they canceled that.

[00:11:20] So, um, um, the other piece of news, the only problem with that piece of news is that we know that the Witcher 4 is coming, but we also know that nobody will be able to buy any hardware to play it on.

[00:11:40] Jake, I don't know if you saw, but the Steam Deck, the one terabyte Steam Deck now costs from $649 to $949 for the one terabyte OLED Steam Deck. That is certifiably insane.

[00:12:06] I mean, that speaks, I think to, that to me tells a few things. One, um, yeah, dude, good luck buying anything related to gaming for being a decent price. I mean, I saw somebody post about this. They're like, the fact that my PS5 has appreciated like five years out or six years out whenever it released, right? Yes. Is first of all unprecedented, right?

[00:12:29] Um, and yeah, I mean, it's, it's as hard as it's ever been, I feel like to get into gaming. I mean, if you want your own stuff, if you want your own rig, if you want your own Steam Deck, whatever it is, uh, it's wild. The other thing is that the, sorry, the other thing I was gonna say, there's two things. The other thing is that the new Steam box is gonna be crazy, dumb, expensive. Dude, that's what I'm saying, like, is the new Steam machine gonna be $1,500?

[00:12:57] How much, this, this to me is kind of wild because with Xbox's, what do they call it? The Project Hydro, I don't know, Helix maybe. They, yeah, how much is that thing gonna be? I mean, they are saying that that is, they're kind of positioning that to be the PC that sits under your TV, right? And to have kind of PC capability. I actually think that those two might be competitive.

[00:13:22] I think, um, as we talked about this a long time ago when the Steam machine was first announced, this new one, uh, we were like, oh, well, it's probably, I don't know, we didn't really know. That's what I remember. It's like, okay, will this be competitive? Like, what will Xbox do to respond to this? Like, imagine this, and I don't think this is too far-fetched. The new Steam box. Yeah, it's $1,500. Where does Xbox price their new thing? Do you put it at $1,000? And then it's like suddenly $500 cheaper than the Steam machine?

[00:13:50] And then people are like, maybe it's time to get an Xbox again? I don't, I don't know. I'm just talking out my butt right now. But like, it's a, it's the Wild West in the future. We don't know. It's the freaking Wild West. Like, I think at what point are the economics no longer viable? That's the question that I always have. Like, we're in a state of the universe that it feels to me like, have we, have we not reached a place where the economics are no longer viable?

[00:14:21] Like, the business model just no longer functions. Yeah. Like, you, you, you can't, because who in the world, no one can buy, no one would be able to buy Project Helix. No one's going to be able to buy PlayStation 6. Yeah. No one's going to be able to buy this Steam machine. And nobody's, everyone's just going to be like, I'm good with what I have. That's what every single gamer who, who's like a serious gamer, they're going to say, I'm good with what I've had because what you have has been in the market now for at least five

[00:14:50] years, Xbox Series S, PlayStation 5, and whatever graphics card you happen to have. I feel like I caught the last chopper out of NOM. I bought this 50 series card, this 5070 Ti. So dude, that's like, I'm sitting on that now for forever. Right. Like never upgrading. I hope game studios and developers are not pushing any graphical improvements at all because that is a losing game. I mean, it always has been a losing game, but it's even more so now. Yeah.

[00:15:22] And yeah, I mean, I work for PlayStation. I, you know, so I can't comment too deeply on this, but it's like, you know, you're going to be putting off releasing a new console for at least what? Two, two years, two more years, three more years, four more years. Like when are we going to be out of the other side of this where gaming becomes, I feel like gaming is now just for the hardcore that is willing to spend huge amounts of money.

[00:15:50] Um, but I think the more realistic reality is there's nobody's going to buy any new hardware now. Like it's going to be only a tiny fractional percentage that's going to actually upgrade their hardware. Well, yeah. And I think the, the overlap between gens of consoles just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And I think we've already seen this with like switch and switch too. I mean, yeah. I mean this current generation of PS six and Xbox series X, like there's overlap between that

[00:16:15] and the, I think maybe with PS4, PS5, Xbox one, Xbox series, it's finally maybe, maybe making some distance, but at the same time, um, yeah, I think the business model doesn't really make sense because the new consoles are getting too expensive. What if the difference in hardware doesn't seem that big or noticeable? Um, and then what if you've already got a massive backlog or you sticking with a bunch

[00:16:41] of free to play games and what's the incentive really to get new hardware in this day and age? I mean, for, for Cameron and I, I think it has been, obviously we do a whole lot of gaming. We have a show here at this podcast. You're listening to it. This matters to us. So things like 60 FPS and better like resolution, like that's stuff that we care about, but we're not the major demographic. And I think that most gamers at this point, they're just going to be like, dude, a PS six comes out. Great. That means I could get an affordable PS five now. Right.

[00:17:11] Yeah. I mean, not the, I mean, they should, the, the PS five is what up to six 50 now for the base. Yeah. Dude. How's that secondhand market going? I'm super curious. I mean, I've, we've never been in a situation where like, like, like you said, the console, uh, your console is a appreciable asset. Yeah. Um, it's nuts. It's nuts, bro. But, um, yeah, I mean, we'll just stick with the, um, it's nuts.

[00:17:40] What we have and hope for the best. I mean, I could say this, this does, this is great for the indie game market because those are going to continue to play on existing and even old devices for like a long time. Yeah. Uh, so yeah. If you are a triple A studio and you're making some beefy graphical hog, I would take a hard look at what you're doing. Yeah. Like make it run on a potato. I mean, it makes me wonder what they're doing over there with GTA six. Right.

[00:18:10] Right. Because I mean, obviously that game is going to come out and it's first coming out on consoles and then it'll hit PC later. But, um, I don't know that it's good. It might be an anomaly, but they might also be like, okay, locked up, uh, locked at 30 FPS for sure. Guaranteed. Man. Ooh. How are, how are people going to take that announcement in September?

[00:18:34] I mean, the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people who play GTA six don't give a flying crap about frame rates. So, um, what shake are we, are we, we're not playing that right. Have we made a vow? Uh, I don't know if we've made a vow, but I have not yet seen anything to really make me. What would it take to get Jake, the pixel professor to play a GTA six?

[00:18:59] Uh, give me the GTA, GTA six HD 2d filter and I'm in review key review copy. Give me a review copy and I will put six hours into that game before it comes out. Yeah, exactly. You run around fake Florida and I don't know, light some surf, start a beach fire, pee on someone, light some people's cars on fires or something. Anyway.

[00:19:27] Um, wait, is public urination possible in a GTA game? Sorry. Random question. I don't believe that was a feature in previous games, but that's an interesting gameplay loop. I will be 1% more interested in GTA six. If you can, if you can pee on things in the wild. Oh, well, Jake, that was kind of the main news. I wanted to talk about kind of crazy Witcher stuff, but yeah, we also have Jake and I both have 007 first light.

[00:19:57] Jake, I got to say to you, we're going to, we're going to do a full episode on this obviously because we gotta, I mean, come on, come on, man, dude. I had the biggest smile on my face playing the first like 90 minutes of that game. I was like, dude, we're here. We did it. I was like, they did it, man. Yeah. Like hour in, I was like, dang. Yes. This is it. Like if you couldn't have drawn it up any better for me in terms of like what IO Interactive

[00:20:24] was going to deliver, obviously still early in the game remains to be seen kind of what my final thoughts are. But that first impression was pretty, was, uh, was not knocked it out of the park for me. Dang. I am sitting here in the sidelines watching the icon. It's fully installed. I haven't been able to boot it up yet. Um, you haven't started yet. Okay. I was working till 10 PM last night doing stuff around the house. All this crap.

[00:20:52] Let me, gosh, you're such an adult. Yeah. Let me be, let me game. Jeez. This weekend is coming. Come on, let the, let the man game for once. I'm going to play a video game. Jake, are you going to play Mina the Hollow? What takes precedence? Mina the Hollow or 007? Oh, Cameron. It's like two massive, the opposite ends. I, I, I didn't realize how close they were together. I was like, for the, the gamers are eating real good right now.

[00:21:22] I gotta, I'll just tell you that. Between like Lego Batman, which did really well, Forza Horizon 6. Those just came out last week. And then first light just came out. And then Mina the Hollow or comes out tomorrow. As of this recording. Um, listen, out of those four games, there's at least one for you. That's a massive spread of games. I feel like. So, I forgot to mention, I picked up Lego Batman. And? It's going to be my kids game of the year. 100%. They're just grinding the crap out of it.

[00:21:52] It's just like co-op. They're getting all excited. My daughter just unlocks Catwoman. Nice. Yeah, dude. It's a, it's solid, bro. Like it's, they did it. They made a new Lego game and they, they nailed it. I think that's going to be a holiday buy over here at my household. Heck yeah. That's gotta be. It's gotta be a holiday buy. Now to answer your question, First Light versus Mina the Hollower. Well, I am going to be out of town.

[00:22:19] Um, I'll be traveling to upstate New York actually. Um, in a few weeks, which means I will be gaming on a Switch. And that's where I'm going to play Mina the Hollower. So whenever I finally do get time to play video games, it will be First Light. Just pretty much that. And then as soon as I'm on the airplane, uh, yeah, Mina the Hollower. Dang. Mina the Hollower getting really good reviews.

[00:22:50] Um, I don't know if it's for me, but I, I am intrigued. I never played Shovel Knight. So, okay. I'm one of those. I'm one of those people. I actually didn't like Shovel Knight. I feel like I'm the only, you know, fan of pixel indie games that didn't really, I bounced hard off of Shovel Knight. Like I bounced really hard off of it. Um, I've sworn to several people that I would give it another try. I'll probably do that. Like on my 50th birthday, I'll boot up Shovel Knight again for the second time.

[00:23:17] Um, but, um, there's this other game that I have played probably three or four hours of. Um, it's called Tearscape. It is, uh, I mean, it is Link's Awakening meets Bloodborne, which is very close to what Mina the Hollower is doing. Dude, Tearscape. Oh my gosh. This looks really similar to Mina the Hollower. This is part of the reason why I wanted to shout this out in this conversation. Um, Tearscape rules. Like I, I played about three or four hours of it.

[00:23:46] And I have loved every second of it. It is exceptionally well done. And I'm just afraid that Mina the Hollower has just showed up and eaten its lunch. I mean, Tearscape came out in like February. So I don't know. Um, but a part of me is kind of like, as soon as, uh, people have started, uh, beating Mina the Hollower and they're talking about what a fantastic game it was. You'll see me on the socials being like, want, want something else to fill that Mina void at this point? Pick up Tearscape.

[00:24:13] Um, but yeah, it's, it's wild that we're getting two games like that in this year. And Mina, I think is like sitting at a 90 something on its, uh, open critic. So. You hit her first, folks. Jake, the pixel professor price hates, um, outer wilds and shovel night. It's like two strikes, man. I'm trying to, the two most beloved games in the history of gaming.

[00:24:39] I mean, at least probably in the top, I don't know, top 10 of like most beloved games ever. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I just bounced on both of them, man. What games do I need to avoid now? I have to avoid braid. I think as a cave story, these are like, what's the, uh, we need to have an episode, maybe a special topic, maybe something else called Mount Rushmore of pre-order bonus podcast video games. Ironically, it's going to be mostly games that we don't like.

[00:25:13] Yeah. Probably. Well, ladies and gentlemen, enough about that. Today's episode, we're diving into Xbox game studios, playground games, Forza Horizon six set in Japan. We got it. We're playing it. Jake, how are we going to break this down? We will be talking about Forza Horizon six and our characteristic categories. There are three of them. The first one will be narrative.

[00:25:42] Typically the caveat I give here is that we're not going to spoil anything and we won't, but also this game story is incredibly hard to spoil. So, um, I'm going to basically repeat what we said in Forza Horizon five. This is a really cool collection of vignettes. This is an, um, anthology of stories. And so it just feels a little different in that regard. We won't spend much time talking about the narrative. Um, next we'll be talking about the game design. We'll be talking about different mechanics, how you're playing the game, what the game feels like to play, what we like about it there.

[00:26:12] And then finally, we'll be talking impact on the industry. Here we get a little more speculative, but we also talk about what we think Forza Horizon six is doing or has done already for the games industry. Let's dive in Forza Horizon six. Uh, this is the horizon festival. Jake, I'm going to be honest.

[00:26:41] I kind of don't like the horizon festival. Oh, really? I feel like it's not a great, it's okay. It's a story device that serves the fantasy of traveling around the Japanese countryside or insert location here to do a bunch of like varieties of different races and then have sort of milestones along the way. Right. It like fits the gameplay loop. It's one of those. It's not like a narrative. There's not a character.

[00:27:11] Like you do pick a character, but like, you're not. Uh, there's no, it's not like a story. It's not like a narrative. There's not themes. There's not like, it doesn't explore anything, which is totally fine. Again, this is just a playground car PG thing. Yeah. Um, you know, it's interesting. Somebody posted a screenshot of cut scenes from the original Forza Horizon. Interesting.

[00:27:37] And they're like way more fleshed out than the ones we have in this game. Interesting. It's really interesting. I'm not saying like, that's like a bad or good thing. It was just like interesting to look at. I think I'm always a sucker for when they try with narrative. Okay. I understand why they don't. I just like, and this is just like my own inherent biases.

[00:28:02] Whenever a game really tries with narrative, I always appreciate that more than just like, you know, whatever's the sort of template boilerplate that just like fits into the game world so that we can make the gameplay loop go, go by basically. Um, which that's basically what you have here. Again, that's not a bad thing. That's not like a kick on the game. That's not that type of video game. It's just, uh, you know, you guys know this. If you listen to the podcast for a while, it's just something like I like.

[00:28:31] It made me think about Star Wars Galactic Racer, which we're going to get later in the year. Yeah. That's coming. And I always was thinking like, you know, I would, I would normally say that force of horizon is going to be the best car game probably that comes out in 2026, but we're getting Star Wars Galactic Racer. And from all accounts, it sounds like that thing is actually going to go decently hard with, with a narrative. It has like branching storylines and stuff.

[00:29:01] So anyway, I just want to not like to throw that comparison out, but yeah, it's forces just it's the, it's the horizon festival. Not much happens. Yeah. I think it's, um, I don't know. I mean, I think maybe my favorite part of this. And again, I already said, I'm going to say this and force of horizon five is just, you get to explore a cool locale and you get to meet characters. I mean, they don't undergo character growth all that much.

[00:29:30] They're just essentially mouthpieces to explain bits of car history, um, about, you know, maybe something that was about, you know, in this case, force of horizon six, you know, the, the Japanese auto industry. So I've learned like a few things about some Japanese car makers and, and that's, that's about it. Um, so it's kind of fun for me. It's more like, it's more like, okay, a little bit of trivia. I'm learning some trivia. If I was like a car guy, I'd be like, cool. I'd have a lot of stuff to share at my next party with my car friends or whatever.

[00:30:00] But like, yeah, it's just, I don't know. I'm doing the, the quests and the races in here because I like shiny car and I like room, you know, like that's really why I'm playing this game. Right. And like you said, this isn't really a problem with this kind of game. It's totally fine. Um, but yeah, for me, the narrative here is just, uh, it tosses a handful of trivia my way and I snack on it and that's kind of okay. Um, yeah, the horizon festival, I don't know.

[00:30:30] I think you're totally right. It's mostly just, uh, a way to tee up how you're going to have, tell people what to do in the game. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, you're doing preparations for the horizon festival and you're getting people and you're meeting them and they're bringing their cars and talking about their cars. And that's it. This is a question I always ask when it comes to games that like sort of lack a narrative, which again, games don't need to have a narrative. It's fine.

[00:30:57] Here's my idea for force and horizon eight. Okay. So we're going to skip seven. This is sick. Sorry. Forza horizon. I was going to say, imagine if this game was designed, structured in the same way as Pokemon. Okay. I'm listening. You don't catch monsters, right? You're collecting cars. You have various regions that you go to who have a gym leader that you, but instead of

[00:31:27] fighting them with Pokemon, you defeat them in a race, but they have a different style of race, like for each region. Right? So maybe you have like sort of the back country races. You have more of like a street race for like, depending on the quote unquote gym type. Right? It's not like one-to-one Pokemon. And you have a rival who shows up and is like trying to beat you and will like come out of nowhere to try and like beat you in the races. Imagine if they'd done that. Would that not be pretty freaking sick? I think, I think having a rival would be pretty sick.

[00:31:55] You're talking a true car PG. I love this. Yeah. I think that's what, again, again, that's what I want. That's not what this is, which again, just to be clear, that's fine. But this is the stuff I dream about when I play these like types of games is like, could they fit a cool narrative in here? I think they actually could. Obviously that's going to take away from other parts that they have to spend a lot of time to get right. Anyway. When's the last time you played a Need for Speed game?

[00:32:24] Because I feel like Need for Speed games, didn't they have campaigns somewhat along this line? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. When's the last Need for Speed game? So this, this was actually one of my main disappointments with Mario Kart world is that the campaign, there is basically no camp. There's no campaign. I wanted like a story campaign where you like, I don't know, you fight Bowser and you have like, but like, like Diddy Kong racing. That's what I wanted.

[00:32:54] Diddy Kong racing does rule. You know what I'm saying? So, or, you know, I don't know, even crash racing. I don't know. I just, I wanted it. You could disagree. The people can disagree, but that's what I wanted from it. And it doesn't have it, which again, it's fine. That's not what it's about. This game is about getting nerdy about cars. Yeah. This game is about history and trivia. It's not about narrative.

[00:33:21] Which to get into mechanics. I mean, this is like mechanics and like game design. Yeah. I mean, look, Forza Horizon 5, you've got the Horizon Festival. You've got like various races that you could participate in. You have a giant open world. The Horizon 5 was Mexico. This is Japan. Super duper cool setting.

[00:33:45] Like you mentioned, Jake, you've got sort of built in the sort of Japanese automakers and famous cars from, you know, like historical Japanese cars from like different eras that you get and you can find like throughout the game. You have like a bajillion different types of races that you can participate in multiplayer. And then, but sort of the structure that it starts you off with is like you're completing various races and placing them so that you can unlock different. Are they bracelets?

[00:34:16] Cards? Yellow bracelet? Green bracelet? Yeah. I can't remember if they're cards or anyway. That unlocks like different tiers of races that you can then participate in. And they're kind of milestone with a larger kind of more flashy high production race in the Horizon Festival, which are pretty cool. I think they're all like pretty dope. You've seen in the trailers already like racing a Gundam, which is pretty sick. But yeah, that's I mean, that's what this game is. And you just go around the world.

[00:34:43] And I think the reason the game works so well is because the cars are just freaking fun to drive. I mean, it's just freaking fun to drive. This is the best feeling car in any video game like Barnum, right? It's just funny to me, right? It sounds so stupid to say. But if the fundamental premise, the fundamental mechanic of your game is thoroughly enjoyable, then you just get to build upon a really strong foundation. And that's what this is.

[00:35:11] It's like, OK, what if we have this kind of open world choose your race game? But driving the car is really fun. It's like, yeah, dude, you got to smash it. Driving the car is really fun. And from there, you can build upon like, you know, what I imagine is still called level design as you're designing these different races and where the turns and curves are going to be. And you get to design just around the fun mechanics of driving the car.

[00:35:35] I think the other aspect here that makes it super approachable is just having super simple controls. Like it's it's not rocket science to figure out how to get this car to go. And if you're new to this series and this is I know we talked about this with Forza Horizon 5. I personally feel like I suck at driving cars and video games. But Forza Horizon 5 made it super easy to jump in and understand the game.

[00:36:01] And then you can kind of strip away some of the features that it has. Right. So like in most races, it'll show just like the series of chevrons. Right. Or these triangles as you're moving on the race. And there'll be blue or red, depending on like whether or not you're going to be able to make a turn. And you can like if you wanted to, you could turn that off. And so one of my kids, for example, is in love with Forza Horizon 6. And they played a ton of Forza Horizon 5.

[00:36:29] And they've been telling me like, hey, dad, like I went up in like a difficulty rank. And I feel like I'm still getting like in the top four of each race. And I don't know. This game just allows you to excel. It pushes you forward. It has super friendly game design in that way, where it's just like, let's just teach you to be better. And let's give you many opportunities to be better. And let's not punish you if you really suck at the game. And so, yeah, I think it's really inviting.

[00:36:53] And this to me would be like a really great example of a cozy game in the sense of like it's there's not a whole lot of friction. Absolutely. There's not a whole lot of friction. You really just enjoy the world, the music, the people talking. And then you go and you race and the racing is simple and it makes sense. And you slowly get better at it without even knowing. That's 100% how I approach this game.

[00:37:18] I think if you want to nerd out with the car, dude, you can go in and you can tweak like so many different stuff. I looked at like the car adjustment like tuning menu and I was like, nope, nope. Yeah. I'm out. Like it's like if you're that guy, though, you could absolutely just get into your Duffy with this game, right? Like if you're a car guy, like you must be just flipping out because this is, you know, kind of top tier from that sense.

[00:37:46] But like you said, if you also just want to literally like I like you said, Jake, I play this as a cozy game. I'm bored. I don't have a lot of time. I'm tired. I sit on the couch. I boot up the game, do a race. Maybe I try and win. Maybe I don't. Maybe I drive around the countryside and try and go fast or like do some drifts. And then I'm out, right? I got a few cars. I want a couple races. That's 100% how I treat this game.

[00:38:13] And that's, you know, and you look, I think, does that mean for me personally, like, is this going to end up being my game of the year? Definitely not. Like it's not going to be a game. I look back and be like, oh, man, like I just it just like, you know, had an emotional this huge emotional reaction on me. It's not going to be that, but it's definitely going to be a game that I just sits on my Xbox. It's never gets uninstalled until the next one comes out. And when I'm just bored and sitting there, it's like, yeah, let's play a couple races.

[00:38:43] Yeah, that's how I've been enjoying it. And it's just so fantastic. Yeah, I think the game design just kind of complements that. But also, like you said, if you're really into this kind of stuff and these types of games, like there's challenge. There's plenty of challenge in this game for you and plenty of technicality. 100%. It's kind of it's just funny, though. To me, this is like a really excellent Game Pass game. I know it's kind of dumb to say because it's an Xbox first party studio that made it. But in the sense of like you install it, you try it out.

[00:39:13] You can play it kind of lazily and then you get into it or you don't. You know, and the game doesn't seem to like reject you no matter with whatever you bring to it in terms of your expectations. I think that's extremely difficult to make. And even then, like, you know, I'm not saying that every game needs to be for everybody necessarily in the sense of like taste.

[00:39:36] But dang, I do think that the Forza Horizon series and specifically five and six become like are as close as possible to making that game. Agreed. Jake, any other thoughts on mechanics game design? I mean, at the end of the day, there's not really anything new here, in my opinion, you know, from from Forza Horizon five.

[00:40:02] It's just a little bit better graphics, cool setting, cool new setting, cool new set of challenges. And that's pretty much it. But that's kind of all it needed to be. Right. Yeah. I mean, it it did what other games in the series have done, which is it leaned into some of the I mean, the actual location and the culture of the people that live in that location. So there's a little bit more here that has to do with Japan. Just like in five, there's a little bit more there that has to do with Mexico. And that works.

[00:40:29] But that's like the most substantial change, I feel like, from game to game, aside from minor like graphical upgrades. Like I did notice, actually, I was surprised that I even noticed. But like when you're driving a car and just watching the reflections of the trees on the roof of the cars, you're passing. Oh, my gosh. This game is gorgeous. This is. Yeah. There are moments I'm like, dude, I could have sworn that was a photograph or I could have sworn this game is a video. Dude, playground games are magicians. This game is gorgeous.

[00:41:00] I mean, this makes me have. I got to say, this makes me get excited about what fable could my dude. My wish for fable not to get a little off topic, maybe industry conversation a little bit. I want for fable so bad for that to be like my unequivocal game of the year type of game. I don't know if it's going to be that, but playground games has the juice.

[00:41:29] And this game, you know, obviously very different game, but at least in terms of like technical wizardry and mastery, it's just in spades here, man. Like this game is so well optimized, runs flawlessly, looks flawless. Like it's insane how optimized this thing is. I have one criticism. Is that I kind of hate the menus in this game. The menus suck. Yes, they are not great.

[00:41:56] They're the same menus from the last game. They did not upgrade them. It feels like a gotcha game when I boot up the menu, you know. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. But maybe that goes with the Japanese setting there, Jake. You know? I got to say also, I've learned playing these Force and Horizon games. I don't really care about the old cars. I want the new car.

[00:42:25] I want the sexy new car. I like the new like supercharged Audi. That's like what the car I want. Well, I don't know why. They have a car for everybody, right? I love that you could get on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I feel like in this one, you start with a lot more sort of classic cars and it kind of builds you up over time and you get some newer ones. But it does.

[00:42:47] Yeah, it does seem to start you with classic cars or I like doing the barn finds just because to me, like going, I'm kind of all over the place. Going back to like the history or trivia that the game offers you, that's the best history or trivia I feel like is the barn find because the whole quest is about, whoa, check out this car. And then for me, I'm like, I don't know cars at all. Why is this car important video game? And they're like, glad you asked. This is why this car is important. And I'm like, cool. I learned something today. Right. But no, yeah.

[00:43:18] Do the menus. I am not a fan of them. I just avoid them because I just want to be on the road racing the cars. Keep me out of the menus. Keep me out of the menus. Industry Impact, Forza Horizon 7. I mean, yeah. I mean, look, Forza Horizon 5 maybe, probably should have, could have won game of the year when it came out.

[00:43:46] But was there some controversy that it was like couldn't be considered because it's a racing game? I would say, I think controversy, it wasn't quite a controversy. I just think a few idiots said that. And then, sorry, you know my opinion on that. Right. But I don't, I mean, I don't think it's like an industry bias. I'm not like into the conspiracy here. But a game like Forza Horizon 6, dude, you're up against First Light.

[00:44:13] You're up against, you're up against some pretty big hitters already. You're up against Resident Evil Requiem. I'm playing through Pragmata right now and I've been shocked. I've been floored at how much I love the combat in that game. And I'm like, dude, you're up against other things. Maybe, I don't know, for racing games like Forza Horizon 5, I think should have been in the conversation for game of the year. And I think for some outlets, it definitely was, right? And I think Forza Horizon 6 will be.

[00:44:39] But I kind of believe that they're also just up against other really good games. Yeah, I mean, this year is going to be stacked. Yeah, this is just a stacked year. Definitely should be in the list, probably should be considered. I mean, this has like tens almost across the board, right? Like from just so many outlets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, Critical Darling for sure.

[00:45:11] Financially, like I think it must do well for Xbox. I think it does do well. This broke major records for concurrent players. It was like five times as high as Forza Horizon 5. This is doing really well for that studio or for Xbox and for that studio. Yeah. So, and yeah. And, you know, supposedly we're going to get Fable this year, which is from the same studio. So interesting year. Like you could have, you could easily have this studio, have two games being a game of the year conversation. Absolutely. You could.

[00:45:41] All right. Real quick. I grabbed these numbers. Let's see. It reached 6 million players by May 21st. This is for Forza Horizon 6. That's smash it. Now, players there means it includes people that have subscribed to Game Pass to play it. But I'm sorry. If you got 6 million people playing your game, it's a success. Smash it. Yeah. For sure. Oh, man. And it'll have a long tail. Oh, yeah. Like it'll have a long tail.

[00:46:05] I mean, these games come out with, dude, Forza Horizon 5 had like eight DLC packs with like cars. And there was this whole Hot Wheels thing. And there's crazy stuff. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Tons and tons and tons and tons of content. But, yeah, taking this back to impact on the industry and talking. I mean, I want to talk Fable, too. I mean, maybe we are just kind of on a bit of a tangent here. But it is the same studio.

[00:46:31] And something that consistently has surprised me with Forza Horizon 5 and 6. And actually, one of my kids really wants to reinstall Forza Horizon 4 now. But, dude, these games perform extremely well. And it just makes me think that Playground Games, I know that there's a little bit of, I don't know, lip biting, if you will, when it was announced that Playground Games would handle Fable.

[00:46:58] But, dude, this is a studio that understands Xbox hardware at the very least. I've only played these games on Xbox. They understand optimization. To me, this feels like a team that has retained talent and they have refined their ability to optimize performance. And so, I think my hunch here is that when Fable launches, if it gets bad reviews or it doesn't score well, it won't be because of graphical quality and performance.

[00:47:28] Like, I'm saying with confidence, I think Playground Games is going to just crush how Fable performs as a game based on what we're seeing here. Should at least, at the bare minimum, perform exceptionally well, I would think. But, yeah, man, I'm excited to see what this studio can do with that franchise with a completely different game.

[00:47:55] Once again, you know, I mean, to have a racing game in 2026, like, just be doing this well is pretty phenomenal. You know, and I don't think anybody else can really pull this off. Like, to be honest, like, I think this is a one-of-a-kind thing that only Playground Games really is capable of doing, which is a pretty cool place to be in, like, if you're a studio.

[00:48:18] To have this niche of, like, open-world car game and basically be the only studio that can do it and kind of own that little spot. But, yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, I pulled up the Wikipedia page for Playground Games here real quick. They've only made the Force Horizon series and then Fable. Yeah, I mean, to me, that was, like, Xbox saying, hey, we have this IP that we own that's a beloved IP.

[00:48:46] And they probably shopped it around to the different studios. And they probably asked a couple different studios to, like, give them a pitch. And my guest is Playground was like, hey, we want to throw our hat in the ring. And they won whatever that bid was, right? Or that conversation. And they got the keys to go make something totally different. Which, again, that's a risk, right? Yeah. Because if Fable doesn't do well, that's going to hurt Playground Games, right, if they can't pull it off.

[00:49:14] But I don't know. Again, completely different game, but extremely talented developers. Developers, I think. Dude, it would be pretty nuts if, again, like I already mentioned, it would be pretty dang nuts if we get to the Game Awards. And Playground Games has two games nominated for Game of the Year. I mean, imagine. I'm going to take this a step further. Imagine you have the Game Awards. What, they do six?

[00:49:45] Is it six nominations for Game of the Year? I'm blanking on it. Something like that. Imagine you have two from Capcom. Resident Evil, Requiem, and Pragmata. And then you have two from Playground Games. Forza and Horizon 6. And Fable. Who's the third studio that's putting out two games this year? Anybody? Is GTA 6 getting nommed for Game of the Year? Or is it just...

[00:50:10] GTA 6 and GTA 6 Deluxe Edition both get nominated for Game of the Year. Me to the Hollower? Or is that Indie game? You know, all those outlets, they at least throw in one Indie. Just like as, you know, a little bone for the Indie fans to chase. I've heard at least two people on different podcasts say Me to the Hollower is currently their Game of the Year. Oh man. Comes out. 007. Dude, 007.

[00:50:39] I can't wait to play. I think it's going to be on the list. Yeah. I mean, we've been talking about it, but it's already shaping to be like we got some really, really incredible games that came out this year. I was trying to think. I had one more thing to say about impact on the industry with Forza Horizon 6. And I think I lost it. There's no more impact on the industry. That's it. No. That's fine.

[00:51:10] Well, ladies and gentlemen, let's spend our episode on Forza Horizon 6. This again is on Game Pass. Go give it a shot. Go do some racists. Let us know what you think. Sound off in the Discord. Let us know your thoughts. What do you think? Do you think Playground Games will have two games in the Game of the Year conversation? Do you think it'll happen? Do you think they have the chops? Do you think they can do it? Let us know. Sound off in the Discord.

[00:51:40] Sound off in the Patreon messages, comments. If you want to support us, leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Helps people find the show. Helps it keep growing. Sign up. Patreon.com slash PeterCast. Get the deluxe edition. You can get extended editions of regular episodes and special topics episodes. And you can join us on our Discord channel if you want to join in the conversation. And finally, you can watch Jake Chippedip18 stream.

[00:52:09] Twitch.tv slash Chippedip18. Go check that out. Follow him. He posts his schedule, his streaming schedule in the Discord as well if you want to follow there. Thank you so much for listening. And have a great night.