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Our Forza Horizon 6 tips for beginners will help you get to grips with the Horizon Festival and race through the ranks to become a festival Legend. To reach such standing, you need to get wristbands and the easiest way to get those is by winning races. But Forza Horizon 6 has plenty more to do outside of race that will help you get festival wristbands and Discover Japan stamps, from PR Stunts and Stories to Barn Finds and even Treasure Cars. It's a lot to keep on top of, particularly if you're unfamiliar with the festival formula, so bear these 10 tips for Forza Horizon 6 in mind and you'll be cruising to Legend Island soon enough.
Quick Forza Horizon 6 tips
- Use "slow in, fast out" when tackling corners
- Follow the racing line for efficient racing
- Don't always slam the brakes or throttle
- Use Auto Upgrades to give your cars a simple boost
- Check your collection journal often for abundant rewards
- Prioritize buying houses for their perks
- Take photos of cars for easy Horizon Festival points
- De-fog the map for plenty of XP and Credits
- Auto-Drive and Drone Mode are really useful features
- Make good use of Fast Travel as it's now free
Forza Horizon 6 racing tips
1. Slow in, fast out
Applying the principle of "slow in, fast out" is practically racing 101 – not just for Forza Horizon 6 either – and will massively help with cornering. Essentially, you want to approach a corner at a slower and more gentle speed, allowing you to smoothly turn and then hit the gas as you begin to straighten up for a rapid exit. Getting the right braking point and approach speed for any corner takes practice, and it's not just about driving the best Forza Horizon 6 cars either, so you'll have to dedicate some time to mastering cornering. Practice makes perfect for the next two tips as well!
2. Use the racing line
Making the most of "slow in, fast out" in FH6 relies on you also following the racing line as best as possible. You can use its blue, yellow, and red color shifting to gauge braking points as you approach turns and corner apexes (the point where you're closest to the inside edge of the corner) so you know when to get back on the throttle. The line is on by default but if you're a bit more experienced, you can switch it to Braking Only, which means the line only appears when you're approaching a corner at too high a speed. There are plenty of other Forza Horizon 6 settings and assists you can change too!
3. Don't slam the brakes or the throttle all the time
If you play using a controller, it's very easy to get into the habit of just slamming the triggers whenever you need to brake or accelerate, but this can be quite ineffective. Punching full throttle can cause wheelspin, bad launches, and a loss of control (this is especially common for the fastest Forza Horizon 6 cars), while hitting the brakes as hard as possible can severely impede your steering and lead to spinning out. Get used to pressing down the triggers more slowly and sometimes partially for smoother driving and better racing. Depending on the corner, sometimes a quick tap of the brakes can be enough or even just releasing the throttle and coasting a little.
4. Use Auto Upgrade to easily upgrade your car
If you want to give your car a performance boost without dipping into the overwhelming world of tuning, the Auto Upgrade option is good enough. Take your cars to any of your garages or the Horizon Festival sites and use Auto Upgrade to boost it to the maximum performance rating for its current class – for example, you could boost a C-class car to 500 or an S2-class car to 900. These upgrades are rarely that expensive and can make a noticeable difference. You can of course upgrade your car to an even higher class too, but sometimes it's better to just buy a better car than pay for the considerable upgrades.
Forza Horizon 6 progression tips
5. Check your collection journal often for rewards
Your Collection Journal is one of the main options on the Campaign menu and shows your progress across the Horizon Festival and Discover Japan. Both have tons of challenges to complete and rewards to collect, including Credits, cosmetics, and even cars to fill out your Forza Horizon 6 car list, so check in often to claim your prizes.
Participate in races and other events to rack up points for Festival wristbands, letting you access more events and therefore get even more rewards. Otherwise, explore the map and complete Stories to get Discover Japan points and Stamps which will help you unlock the same sorts of rewards and even Forza Horizon 6 Barn Finds. Stories can also help you learn about certain aspects of the game – for example, you can join the Drift Club if you want to learn more about drifting.
6. Prioritize buying houses
For a game all about racing, worrying about houses more than cars seems odd, but each property you own in Forza Horizon 6 provides its own perk, from a free daily Wheelspin to increased Credit payouts in certain events, it's well worth having these to help you bolster your progression and car collection.
7. Take photos at the start of a race
The Horizon Festival Promo feature, where you take pictures of every car possible, is a great way of quickly and easily earning point towards your next wristband. If you see a car with a camera icon above it, that means you've not added it to your Promo and can take a photo of it. Every car you snap awards you 10 points, which can quickly add up and boost your Festival progress. To make the most of this feature, enter Photo Mode (D-Pad Up) as soon as a race starts, then snap some Quickshot pictures with RB/R1 of all the cars on the grid!
You can also use Photo Mode in free roam to remove car damage in Forza Horizon 6.
Forza Horizon 6 exploration tips
8. De-fogging the map gets you lots of XP and CR
As well as revealing new races and activities, driving around the map to clear the fog also gets you large chunks of XP and Credits for every 25% of a region you clear – in total, you get 100,000 Credits per Region. That means clearing every region will give you one million CR - a great way to get money in Forza Horizon 6! Importantly, it’s also a much less daunting task than it seems since the game will completely clear a region for you once you've cleared roughly 70%-80% of it – the exact number varies by region.
9. ANNA's Auto Drive and Drone Mode options are really handy
The navigation assistant robot ANNA now lets you easily use Drone Mode and a new Auto Drive feature to help you get around. To access either option, press D-Pad Down then Up for Drone Mode or Left for Enable Auto Drive.
Drone Mode is great for searching Barn Find areas and even looking for the new Forza Horizon 6 Treasure Cars and has always been buried in menus in previous Forza Horizon games. Meanwhile, Auto Drive is good for helping you get around if you don't want to drive or fast travel, or you need to quickly put your controller down to do something else.
10. Fast travel is much simpler now
Speaking of fast travel, it's now much easier to use compared to previous Forza Horizon games. Fast Travel boards and Credit fees are gone, and now you can fast travel to any point on a road that you've previously driven on for free – in other words, you can't us Forza Horizon 6 fast travel to reach grey roads. Hover the map cursor over the point you want to travel to, then press X/Square.
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