Forza Horizon 6 launches on May 19, 2026, but some players can start playing earlier through the old New Zealand trick. It is the same time zone workaround Xbox players have used for years: change your console’s location to New Zealand, restart, and use the game’s local midnight unlock to play before it goes live in your own region.
One important caveat is that this only helps if you already have access to the game through a version that unlocks based on local time. For Forza Horizon 6, that means Xbox Series X|S and the Xbox app / Microsoft Store PC versions. The Steam version uses a global unlock time instead, so changing your PC region will do nothing.
