I'll cut right to the chase; yes, Forza Horizon 6 will be continuing the Festival Playlist post-launch content template.

It's one of the things that, until now, we hadn't been given any real information on. Indeed, when I previewed Forza Horizon 6, there was no sign of this content in the early build.

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When does the Forza Horizon 6 Festival Playlist begin?

The Festival Playlist will be available in Forza Horizon 6 at launch. That is, May 19, 2026, for Standard Edition players and May 15, 2026, if you have early access through the Premium Edition.

Specifically, according to the developer Q&A, the Festival Playlist will be unlocked once you progress far enough through the game to qualify for the Horizon Festival.

From my experience playing the early preview build, I can tell you that this process will only take about an hour. While the preview build ended at the point you reach the Horizon Festival qualifier race, it was easily less than an hour's gameplay to get to that point.

So it'll be available long before you've completed the single-player story.

The big change for the Forza Horizon 6 Festival Playlist.

One of the issues with the Festival Playlist is that it quite often rewards cars that aren't available to buy from the Autoshow. Once the week rolls over to a new Festival Playlist they're gone.

In Forza Horizon 5 the Backstage Pass eventually helped players get their hands on these, but I'll openly admit I'm not a fan of it. You have to earn them from the Festival Playlist or buy them from the Forzathon shop, which requires building up points from other activities. It was only recently, too, that all cars were finally made available, but you still can't get them en-masse.

This FOMO affects players, and in particular, we can look to PS5 players of Forza Horizon 6 who won't even be able to play until later this year. Fortunately, we're promised that there will be a solution to get those missed cars.

From the same Q&A it has been confirmed that Festival Playlist cars will be made available after the fact. How, exactly, we still don't know, but it has been mentioned that cycling them into the Aftermarket Cars rotation is a possibility.

I saw these firsthand in the Forza Horizon 6 preview, and I wouldn't be against it at all. Aftermarket Cars spawn in rotation at set points on the map, are available to purchase with regular in-game credits, and usually come pre-tuned at a discounted price.

Until launch it's unlikely we'll know exactly which method Playground Games is employing, but the fact the developers are already in front of the issue at least gives us more confidence that players won't miss out, whenever it is they start playing.

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Richard Devine is the Managing Editor at Windows Central, where he combines a deep love for the open-source community with expert-level technical coverage. Whether he’s hunting for the next big project on GitHub, fine-tuning a WSL workflow, or breaking down the latest meta in Call of Duty, Forza, and The Division 2, Richard focuses on making complex tech accessible to every kind of user. If it’s happening in the world of Windows or PC gaming, he’s probably already knee-deep in the code (or the lobbies). Follow him on X and Mastodon.