Forza Horizon 6's release date might have raced onto the streets faster than planned, thanks to an ad

What’s that screaming around the bend, tyres squealing and RPMs peaking? It’s Forza Horizon 6’s release date arriving ahead of schedule, assuming a pop-up ad allegedly spotted in Forza Horizon 5 is the genuine article. If that’s the case, then the open-world racing series’ trip to Japan is booked to arrive in May this year.

The alleged ad that’s the source here was originally posted by a Saudi Arabian Twitter account with the handle @XBOXF10 (as spotted by Xboxera), which as you might expect appears to focus on posting Xbox-relevant gaming news. The pop-up outlines a bunch of stuff you’ll apparently get for pre-ordering Horizon 6’s premium edition, including the chance to play it four days ahead of regular purchasers as part of paid early access kicking off on May 15th.

So, using the power of maths, folk have surmised that as pointing to May 19th as the racer’s proper release date for those who don’t believe in lobbing out more cash just to run to the front of the queue. This would be a tad atypical a time for a Horizon entry to arrive, with all five previous entries having dropped in the second half of their launch year’s, usually around October or November. That said, Horizon 5’s PlayStation release did take place in April last year, so that could be precedent for a switch towards launches earlier in the calendar.

Going back to the pop-up ad, it cites Horizon 6 as boasting “over 550 real-world cars”, which isn’t too far off the 534 cars the Ian Games Network’s big car list cites Horizon 5 as having packed into its garage at launch. VIP membership, a welcome Pack, car pass access, a Time Attack car pack, an Italian Passion car pack, and two “premium expansions” are the other goodies listed as coming the way of swanky version pre-purchasers, with the latter two specified to be coming post-launch.

Horizon 6 is set to rock up at Xbox’s Developer Direct showcase on January 22nd, and if this release date is something that was set to be revealed there, it’d follow in the wheeltracks of the game’s Japanese setting being revealed early by a rogue Instragram post last September. If you fancy reading some words about why Horizon 6 is one of the games I’m most looking forward to giving a go this year, you can find ’em here.