Forza Horizon 6 Hits PS5 on 26 January 2027, Alongside Its First Expansion

Update, 12 October 2026, 08:55 CEST: Playground Games has dated the PS5 version. This story was first published on 18 September, when no date existed; it now covers the confirmed date, editions, prices and what changed.

Forza Horizon 6 launches on PlayStation 5 on 26 January 2027, Playground Games announced on forza.net on 8 October, with Premium Edition owners getting in five days early on 21 January. The same post dates the game's first Premium Expansion for 21 January 2027 on every platform, and a disc version is coming too.

That is later than the "later this year" Playground promised on 7 September, and almost exactly what The Verge and IGN reported in August: a 2027 PS5 launch tied to the first expansion. What follows is the confirmed detail, then the full record of who said what — the Forza Horizon 6 hub has the rest of the game's coverage.

Forza Horizon 6 PS5 release date, editions and price

Playground's PS5 FAQ lists three editions plus a Premium Upgrade for Standard and Deluxe owners, and the US prices match the PlayStation Store listing (checked 12 October). Early access and launch unlock at 12:01am local time; in western US time zones that means 9pm PST the evening before. Every PlayStation Store pre-order adds a pre-tuned Ferrari J50 to the garage once the prologue is done.

Play Forza Horizon 6 PS5 pre-order trailer (PlayStation)

What else is confirmed for the PS5 version?

The port is by Panic Button, the studio behind last year's PS5 version of Forza Horizon 5, working with Playground Games and Turn 10. It has a 4K 30fps Quality mode and a 60fps Performance mode; Playground has said nothing about PS5 Pro enhancements, a gap Game Informer also noted. Cross-play and cross-save with the Xbox and Steam versions are confirmed, and player-made content such as EventLab races and liveries is shared across platforms from day one.

There are strings attached. The FAQ says the PS5 version needs both a PSN account and a linked Microsoft account, the link is permanent for that game, and online multiplayer needs PlayStation Plus. It is also a standalone purchase: owning the game on Xbox or Steam does not get you a PS5 copy, and DLC has to be bought on each platform.

On 11 October Playground confirmed on social media that a boxed PS5 release is coming. Push Square reports that, like most Microsoft games, the disc will still need a download, noting the game takes up almost 150GB on Xbox Series X|S. Playground's FAQ does not say how much of the game is on the disc, so treat that detail as unconfirmed for now.

How we got here: every statement about the PS5 version

A PlayStation 5 version has been part of the plan since the game was revealed. Xbox announced it at the Tokyo Game Show 2025 broadcast on 25 September, framed from the start as a post-launch release rather than a simultaneous one. At January's Developer Direct, with the May 2026 date confirmed for Xbox and PC, the PS5 framing tightened to "later in 2026" (Xbox Wire).

That held until October. The 7 September Series 5 post was the studio's last word before the date, and it pointed players at the PlayStation Store listing to be notified when the game was available. That listing was wishlist-only at the time: no date, no price. Push Square and GamesRadar+ both read the post the same way at the time — as a reiteration, in the face of delay rumours, that 2026 was still the plan.

Why Tokyo Game Show mattered, and what happened there

Xbox's TGS 2026 Broadcast aired on 17 September, and Forza Horizon 6 was not part of it. That is an absence rather than a statement, so it is worth being precise about the evidence: Xbox Wire published a recap listing the broadcast's full lineup, and the game does not appear in it.

The show was a plausible venue for a date, which is why the silence registered. Forza Horizon 6 is set in Japan, TGS is the Japanese trade show, and the game was revealed on that same Xbox stage one year earlier almost to the day. Other titles did leave the broadcast with dates attached — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on 23 October 2026, Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember on 4 March 2027 — which makes the omission legible rather than routine.

For context on what PlayStation owners are waiting for: the game launched on 19 May 2026, with Premium Edition early access from the 15th, on Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam and the Microsoft Store, and Xbox Cloud — day one on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. It is set in Japan with more than 550 cars at launch, and Xbox describes Tokyo City as "the largest ever urban area in a Forza Horizon game". It passed six million players within days, a figure that counts Game Pass players rather than copies sold, and it reviewed strongly: OpenCritic has it at 91, "Mighty", with 99% of 166 critics recommending it, against a Metacritic 90 from 79 critics.

The reporting was right, and what to do now

On 27 August, The Verge's Tom Warren posted that he was "not expecting to see Forza Horizon 6 on PS5 in 2026". Four days later IGN reported that it understood this to be accurate, coverage picked up by GamingBolt among others. The reported explanation — that Microsoft intended to ship the PlayStation version alongside the game's first major expansion — was not confirmed by Playground or Xbox at the time. On 8 October it was: the PS5 launch and the first Premium Expansion now land in the same week of January 2027. The timing is earlier than the one-year anniversary the reports floated, but the shape is the same.

If you play on PC, there is no reason to wait: at 06:42 UTC on 12 October, Steam showed 8,825 people playing, the game sat 57th in Steam's most-played chart (up from 66th a week earlier), and 80.7% of its 101,709 Steam reviews were positive. If you plan to move to PS5, cross-save carries your progress over with the same Microsoft account, but the game and any DLC are a fresh purchase.

For PlayStation-only players, the choice is between the Standard Edition on 26 January and the Premium Edition on 21 January, which also covers both expansions. Playground has promised a free content update for all players alongside the PS5 launch, with details closer to release.