If you've been having a bad time at work recently, take solace in the fact you're not the one who leaked your studio's game early on Steam. Forza Horizon 6 unexpectedly arrived on Valve's marketplace over a week before launch, giving players a chance to check out the racer earlier than anticipated.
It's believed the sequel's leak is somehow tied to a Steam update that contained all the files necessary to make it playable. Keen-eyed fans spotted the updated listing on SteamDB and, upon further inspection, noticed that the full 155GB game was both downloadable and bootable.
On Forza Horizon 6's SteamDB page, under Depots, you can still find the build listed. Clicking through will give you a full list of all the files therein. The Branches table down below calls this the 'public' branch, lending credence to the notion that this is indeed the full game as it was intended to be released on Steam, but over a week ahead of schedule.
Reddit posts associated with the leak are being moderated for links, but this being the internet, Forza Horizon 6 is findable if you know where to look. There's no indication of how well it runs or whether all the appropriate options are available.
Some have even taken to hoping for an early release. "Might as well ship the game now. I mean, if someone really wants to play they are going to grab the cracked version early," one player states on Reddit.
"Can they bring foward the release date for people that have paid for it then? Seems fair?" another says.
Commenters on Reddit have noted streamers and content creators posting footage, but Microsoft is likely playing whack-a-mole to suppress and delete those. Besides, these builds can be missing features or mechanics, or there could be failsafes within them that treat these copies as pirated and disable certain mechanics.
The only way to guarantee you're playing the game as intended is to get it when it's actually available to buy. So far, neither Microsoft nor Playground Games have commented on the leak. They might not, either, given how close we are to release. Forza Horizon 6 comes out on May 19, with early access for preorders starting on May 15, so there's only a short time to wait, and in situations like this, acknowledging the thing is out there may do more harm than good.
