Forza Horizon 6 is dropping a long-standing feature — players move to protest

Forza Horizon 6 has been shaping up to be the best entry in the series, at least, that’s what it looks like at a glance. The dazzling spectacle of Japan, coupled with all the new and shiny upgrades to the ForzaTech Engine, promises to bring denser traffic, more dynamic environments, and improvements that will bring the world to a level of detail never found in previous games. The whole adding things doesn’t seem to be the only direction that the franchise has taken.

The Forza Horizon team has announced that Forza Horizon 6 will no longer feature Club functionality. Since Xbox is removing Social Clubs from the platform this April, Playground is being forced to retire the feature as well, since it relies on that tech as the foundation for its later Forza games.

Not only does this change affect Forza Horizon 6, but it forces Playground to shut down social clubs down on Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Horizon 4. Forza Horizon 3 is not affected by this. Digging a little deeper, Forza Horizon 3 doesn’t use the Xbox Social Club feature as its backbone.

Why not just build it again?

Forza Horizon 3 used its own proprietary Social Club feature to get the job done, which in turn begs the question, why not just do the same thing for Forza Horizon 6?

For Forza Horizon 4 and 5, there’s very little reason to continue to update the games so long into their life cycle, with the sequel only months away. There will be far fewer players on Horizon 5 as people move over to the next game, making the idea of rebuilding something nobody would use rather silly.

As for Forza Horizon 6, it’s really the same reason. Playground is currently only a couple of months away from launching its next game. Not to mention this will be the first time they’ve ever launched across three platforms all at once.

Development time is currently being spent on bug fixing, optimization, and polishing. I don’t think anybody with reasonable expectations would think they could rebuild the feature all over again and put it in Forza Horizon 6 in time for it to work across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.

Don Joewon Song, a renowned Forza Horizon fan and content creator, was especially surprised by the removal of the component.

“I can't believe I'm saying this. Forza Horizon 6 will NOT feature In-Game Clubs. This will be the first Forza Horizon title to not have this feature!!”

Maybe this is a good thing

If you’re not a regular Social Club user, maybe its removal doesn’t sting much. Since Forza Horizon 4, clubs have felt stripped-down and a bit soulless. But for Millennials like me, the original Forza Horizon trilogy had clubs that actually mattered, with leaderboards, club rewards, and a real sense of belonging, not just a roster of random names.

In other words, the newer systems were awful by comparison. Maybe we can go back to the ways of old?

Banding with fellow players once led to noteworthy rewards, something missing from Forza Horizon 4 and 5. If you’d like to see this kind of teamwork-focused feature make a comeback in Forza Horizon 6, consider supporting the petition currently making the rounds on the Forza Horizon forums. Let’s come together and advocate for a club system built from the ground up!

How do you feel about clubs being dropped?

Losing Social Clubs does mean Forza Horizon 6 won't have one of the unique aspects previous games had. A place for players to come together without having to rely on external services like Discord.

Is the loss going to affect your enjoyment of the newest Forza Horizon game compared to its predecessors?

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