Forza Horizon 5 early access start time: Here's when you can play

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You don't have long to wait if you have Premium

Forza Horizon 5
(Image credit: Microsoft)

When does Forza Horizon 5 early access begin? Depending on where you are in the world, you may not have much longer to wait - if at all.

While Forza Horizon 5's official release date won't come until next week, some players are already tearing up the streets and touring the sights of virtual Mexico thanks to its early access scheme. If you pre-purchased Forza Horizon 5 Premium Edition, or bought the Premium Add-Ons bundle and plan to play via Xbox Game Pass, that's you! As for what time specifically you can start playing, here's the word from the official Forza Horizon Twitter account.

According to its schedule, Forza Horizon 5 early access will unlock for Xbox and Windows 10 store players at 12:01 am local time on November 5. For the US, that's specifically Eastern time, which means players on Pacific time will actually be able to start playing at 9:01 pm Thursday night.

If you're planning to play via Steam, there's only one unlock time for the whole world: 12:01 am EDT on November 5. Again, this is all exclusively for players who either have the Premium Edition or Premium Add-Ons bundle ready to go - if you plan on playing the standard edition of the game (which is included with Xbox Game Pass), you'll need to wait for the standard release date of Tuesday, November 9. Even if you plan on waiting, you can at least start pre-loading now to get the Forza Horizon 5 file size all squared away on your system of choice.

Check out our Forza Horizon 5 review to see what we thought of our time in Playground Games' new open-world racer.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.