Forza Horizon fans have spent years cruising through massive open worlds, but the real test has always been online playability and stability. From the series’ start back in 2012 up to Forza Horizon 5, online multiplayer has been a mix of smooth experiences and outright frustration. Fans notice the social element and spontaneous races, but the constant headaches about matchmaking issues, cheaters, and forced playlists keep fans yearning for a seamless online multiplayer experience.
Even now, with Forza Horizon 6 right around the corner, we still haven’t heard any official online details yet.
The Evolution Of Online In Forza Horizon
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Rewinding to Forza Horizon 1 on Xbox 360, the game kept things straightforward with open-world multiplayer. You could drop into free roam with up to 12 players, jump into random races, and win cars or cash after victory laps. Reviewers called it easy to get into and genuinely fun, especially for newcomers who got a slow introduction before being tossed into the craze. No massive lobbies, but it just worked seamlessly, and it just proves that it’s about easy playability for the average gamer, not massive lobby sizes.
FH2 tried to level that up. Engine swaps got everyone messing around with builds in online play, and newer fans to the classic still praise the atmosphere and car handling in multiplayer. Even so, some races felt repetitive over time. Then, FH3 stepped in and raised the bar.
Suddenly, you had multiple online adventures for cruising between races, co-op story mode, and free-roam. Clubs let you show off your skills and add a sense of competitiveness. Veterans called it solid, although some call FH1’s multiplayer better for feeling fuller despite smaller lobbies, saying FH3’s 12-player cap left free roam feeling empty. Still, it was a peak for many, blending single-player and multiplayer seamlessly.
Then came FH4, and cracks started to reveal. Rivals mode was awesome for chasing ghost times without the bumper-car chaos in actual races. However, PC queues dragged up to 10-15 minutes, and long loading times killed momentum. By the time Forza Horizon 5 came out, everything sort of unraveled. Fans called it “hot garbage” online: lag all across, glitchy sync, cheaters in every playlist event, overpowered old cars dominating, and ramming encouraged by weak penalties.
Multiplayer got tied to those Festival Playlist rewards, which was the worst bit that dragged in casuals who hate it, get carried, then bail, messing up things for serious competitors. There’s never been a structure (rankings, dedicated mode) that serious online players wanted. You just ended up with lobbies full of toxic griefers skipping racers or quitting outright.
What FH6 Must Get Right
Now, heading into Forza Horizon 6, longtime fans have definitely been loud with their wishlists: bigger lobbies so open-world feels alive, proper competitive modes and rankings, private lobbies for content creators and streamers, better anti-cheat, instant match-making filters, and no forced multiplayer playlists.
Forza Horizon 6 needs to improve its anti-cheat, and if it can manage to build a robust system, we could also see a dedicated competitive mode, maybe even a competitive free roam. Additionally, the ability to create private lobbies where only you and your friends can go on cruises is also a great idea. They can transfer the system from Forza Motorsport easily.
But, most importantly, they need to bring back some sort of leaderboards system, where players can compete, on laptimes for routes, top speeds, drift scores, and much more. They already have a similar system for races where you often compete against race bots of your friends that are doing their best lap time. Plus, setting up custom events is also a welcome feature.
When the game is set in scenic Japan, it makes sense to offer a seamless online experience from the get-go. No launch-week issues, no post-launch hotfixes. Get it right, and Forza Horizon 6 could finally deliver the online multiplayer experience Forza fans have craved for since the beginning.
Published: Apr 10, 2026 04:30 pm