Forza Motorsport Paused While Horizon 6 Goes Multiplatform — Here’s the Real Story

Forza Motorsport Hits Pause – And Horizon Takes the Wheel

Phil Spencer has shut down the “Forza is dead” chatter, but he didn’t sugarcoat it either: Turn 10 has been scaled back, Motorsport is on the back burner, and Xbox is focusing on games that are closer to shipping. Meanwhile, Forza Horizon 6 is locked in for next year – and yes, it’s coming to PC, Xbox Series, and PS5. As someone who spent a lot of time with the 2023 Motorsport reboot, this caught my attention because it confirms what players have felt for months: the live-service cadence slowed, priorities shifted, and the sim half of Forza isn’t driving the roadmap right now.

Key Takeaways

• Forza Motorsport isn’t cancelled, but major development is paused while Xbox reallocates resources.
• Turn 10’s downsizing signals a longer gap before the next meaningful Motorsport push.
• Forza Horizon 6 is the near-term flagship – and it’s going multiplatform with a PS5 release.
• The big questions: cross-play/cross-progression, content cadence, and whether Motorsport returns with real fixes, not just new cars.

Breaking Down the Announcement

Spencer’s message is classic Xbox 2025: flexible pipeline, multi-studio juggle, ship what’s ready. Turn 10 took a reported 50% headcount hit, and that alone tells you the sim side is moving to a slow burn. That doesn’t mean Motorsport is gone. It means don’t expect big feature drops or a new entry anytime soon.

On the other side of the garage, Playground’s open-world juggernaut keeps the brand visible. Horizon 5 has been the crowd-pleaser for years — easier to onboard, huge vibes, massive reach — so pushing Horizon 6 as the marquee racer makes sense if Xbox wants wins in the next 12 months.

Why This Pivot Makes Sense (And What’s Lost)

Motorsport 2023 made real strides under the hood. The tire model and track evolution felt great on a wheel, and the game could look stunning in motion. But the launch content was thin versus its legacy and against Gran Turismo 7’s relentless post-launch support. Career structure was divisive, AI racecraft was inconsistent, and online needed stronger safety/skill rating systems to keep lobbies clean. If you’re Microsoft looking at ROI, pausing the most expensive, most demanding sim to regroup while the mass-market Horizon series carries the banner is the practical move.

Still, this pause comes with a cost. Forza Motorsport used to be the yardstick for Xbox tech — the “show me what the console can do” game. Parking that identity, even temporarily, cedes mindshare to Polyphony and to PC-first sims. If the return isn’t accompanied by more tracks, better AI, smarter online tools, and a clearer endgame for competitive players, it’ll be hard to win that ground back.

The Horizon 6 on PS5 Play: Smart Expansion or Identity Crisis?

Bringing Forza Horizon 6 to PS5 is the headline-grabber. From a gamer’s perspective, more players is good — bigger online worlds, healthier festival playlists, and more creators in the photo and livery communities. From Microsoft’s perspective, it’s a clean revenue move: Horizon is mainstream enough to sell millions wherever it lands.

But there are questions Xbox hasn’t answered yet, and they matter. Will Horizon 6 support full cross-play and cross-progression across Xbox, PC, and PS5? If you’ve built a stable of cars and liveries for years, losing that continuity would sting. What about performance parity and features? DualSense haptics on PS5 would be a layup, but will Xbox keep visual parity as the “home” platform? And does Playground’s bandwidth — split between Fable and Horizon — have enough room to avoid the content droughts we saw late in Horizon 5’s life?

About That Tech Stack

One line floating around suggests Unreal Engine 5 is part of Xbox’s future investment for racers. Important reality check: Forza’s backbone is ForzaTech, and Turn 10 has spent two decades building pipelines and physics around it. Swapping a sim to a general-purpose engine isn’t a six-month decision — it’s a multi-year risk to handling feel, toolchains, and modability. If Motorsport is going to come back strong, it’s more likely via a refined ForzaTech, expanded track-building tools, and better AI/online systems than a wholesale engine switch.

What Motorsport Fans Should Watch For

• Update cadence: Even in “pause,” do we see balance tweaks, bug fixes, and limited-time events to keep lobbies alive?
• AI and online: A proper safety/skill rating, smarter traffic behavior, and stricter penalties would do more for the community than another car pack.
• Track pipeline: Motorsport needs more circuits, period — classic staples and laser-scanned modern tracks to rival GT7’s list.
• PC-first features: Wider VR support and robust wheel profiles are low-hanging fruit to win back sim diehards.

If You’re Here for Racing, What to Play Now

On Xbox and PC, Horizon 5 remains a blast for casual cruising and weekly challenges. If you want sweatier racing, Assetto Corsa Competizione still delivers top-tier GT racing with excellent force feedback, and EA Sports WRC has found its footing after patches. The Crew Motorfest scratches the open-world itch with a different flavor while we wait for Horizon 6.

Looking Ahead

The optimistic read: Microsoft is giving Turn 10 breathing room to rethink Motorsport properly while Playground carries the brand with a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. The cynical read: “pause” often turns into “quiet sunset” if the comeback plan isn’t airtight. The truth will land in the middle — and that puts pressure on Horizon 6 to launch strong, scale fast, and prove Xbox’s multiplatform bet grows the Forza community rather than diluting it.

TL;DR

Forza Motorsport isn’t dead, but it’s benched while Xbox prioritizes games closer to release. Forza Horizon 6 is the new flagship — and it’s going to PS5 alongside Xbox and PC. Great for players, but the sim crowd needs more than promises when Motorsport returns: more tracks, smarter AI, and online systems that treat clean racing like a first-class feature.