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Forza Horizon 6 will launch in full May 19 after enjoying its currently ongoing early access period, and then everyone will be able to crash through its idyllic Japan setting like Godzilla in a Ferrari. The racing game lets you crumble nearly everything under your tires, but no matter how hard you hit the gas, the fluffy cherry blossoms will remain pristine. Developer Playground Games decided they were too important to destroy.
As design director Torben Ellert tells The Japan Times in a new interview, Playground wanted to respect Forza fans' highly requested Japan environment by recognizing the cultural sacredness of shrines and sakura, or cherry blossoms, the country's unofficial national flower. While the tissue-paper fragility of sakura is part of what makes them so special in Japan, which treats the spring blooms as a symbol of both renewal and impermanence (and a great photo opportunity), Playground was simply not going to let you wreck their trees with a truck.
Ellert says, "Almost all trees in the game are smashable to ensure that traversing the world map is both fun and rewarding," since you can earn experience points through destruction. But "several tree types are not – for example, the cherry blossom trees – because they're an iconic element of Japanese culture." Playground also decided to protect "certain temples or other cultural elements" like shrines, according to Ellert.
In terms of gameplay, this poses no problem. If anything, our four-out-of-five Forza Horizon 6 review is more conflicted about how the game handles everything that is breakable. Like the past few Forza entries, a lot of Forza Japan reacts as if it were built from bags of flour, and even other cars feel like they disintegrate during collisions. Writer Justin Towell says, "by this sixth entry, I can't help but feel the flimsiness is hurting the game. Even at low speed in a Mini Cooper, 90% of the trees here are no barrier at all." But not the sakura trees!
Instead, their blossoms react calmly to your blustery horsepower, shaking down gently from thin branches and topping your car like powdered sugar. Driving over a blossom-covered path stirs up the pink petals and sends them fluttering in every direction, so Forza Horizon 6 at least values realism in this way – the pretty way.
