FH6 predictions – Germany?

Ericship111 posted a video about a prediction that FH6 is going to be set in Germany. The source claimed a high degree of reliability, but on scrutiny, that turned out to be wishful thinking. I wouldn’t object to Germany as a location myself. One of the comments on the video observed that Assetto Corsa Evo is going to have a map based in Germany, but if PGG and Turn10 have already been working on Germany as a setting, it’s too late in the day to change that. Also, their petty levels of secrecy mean that if Kunos had no idea where FH6 might be set, then their choice is their choice without taking unpredictable external factors into account. It does set up an interesting conundrum because ACE may be in competition with FH6 as an open-world game.

But we’ve never had a Horizon game in Asia, Africa or South America. The twisty courses in the RA expansion made me wonder whether this was testing for Japan where (and I’m assuming this) the roads may mostly be mad spaghetti.

I’ve seen China mentioned as a location a fair few times, but that would be fraught. Certainly it’d appeal to local players, but it wouldn’t appeal to a lot of other players (e.g. China vs. Japan; which may be another factor against Japan because of a potential backlash from the more infantile, volatile Chinese players; in truth, there’s much about Japan that appeals to the Chinese such as anime, manga, and cosplay). In all likelihood PGG would never be allowed to scan bits of China because of imagined “security” issues. Wouldn’t surprise me if Japan was the same.

PGG and Turn 10 would almost certainly be forced to partner with local gaming companies who would quite possibly rip them off with, say, a clone of the game. There’d probably be a mass of restrictions on what could or couldn’t be depicted in the game, thus producing a fantasy version of China.

The NPCs could be an issue because there’s no genuine diversity in China outside of expats who are now very few and far between. Apart from the performing foreigners (still around?) there’s very little foreign representation in China. No ticking of the diversity box.

There might be language issues since Chinese characters are utterly opaque to outsiders, whereas I can at least read signs in Spanish or German even though I may not know what it says. (Yes, I can read a range of Chinese characters.) Japan is the same. I can tell the difference between katakana and hiragana, but can read neither.

Or it would never happen because of the moral panic that it would induce, lest the weak-brained youth of China succumb to driving cars recklessly. The silly thing is that the Chinese are poor drivers in real life. At best there might be Forza Horizon China, which is entirely restricted to the Chinese market.

One thing I did hear about Mexico was that it was an emerging xbox market, but the length of time between FH5 and FH6 means that a market that was emerging four years ago has probably ceased to emerge.

Wherever FH6 is set, I’ll stick with my prediction that the announcement will be made in summer next year and the game will be released in autumn 2025.