March weather here in the northeastern US is on the crummy side, which means it’s a terrific time to head back out into the sunny southern climes of Forza Horizon 5. The bucolic driving game’s sixth series has arrived, meaning there are all new activities and souped-up supercars to check out, as well as a nice batch of performance improvements and bug fixes.
Series Six introduces some new modes to Forza Horizon 5. There’s Custom Racing available in Horizon Open now, which means you can group up with fellow racers who share your preferences – you can pick out your preferred PI class, race type, or what have you, and hop into a race with folks who’ve picked the same parameters.
On the topic of Horizon Open, it now has its own standalone progression system. Anything you do in Open Racing, Playground Games, Custom Racing, and Drifting will count towards your experience total for Horizon Open. The Eliminator will not – that’s been moved to the Online tab in Forza Horizon 5’s pause menu.
Let’s focus in for a moment on drifting, since that’s part of Horizon Open now. Series Six adds in the Drift Club series from Forza Horizon 4, which you’ll be able to start playing as soon as you’ve constructed the Horizon Rush Outpost main stage in the north section of the map. The events in Drift Club Mexico put you “behind the wheel of seven of the world’s coolest drift cars,” and the prize for completing all of them is a gorgeous new 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E 1400.
The Series Six Festival Playlist adds four new cars to earn. Here’s the lineup, along with the dates for each one.
- 2012 Ascari KZ1R – Earn 20 points during the Summer ‘Wet’ Season on the Series Six Festival Playlist, March 31 – April 6
- 2021 McLaren 765LT Coupe – Earn 20 points during the Autumn ‘Storm’ Season on the Series Six Festival Playlist from April 7 – 13
- 2018 ATS GT – Earn 20 points during the Winter ‘Dry’ Season on the Series Six Festival Playlist from April 14 – 20.
- 2014 McLaren 650S Spider – Earn 20 points during the Spring ‘Hot’ Season on the Series Six Festival Playlist from April 21 – 27.
If you own the Car Pass, you can look forward to adding the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado, the 2021 McLaren 630R, the 2021 Mini John Cooper Works GP, and the 2019 Porsche 911 Speedster to your collection during Series Six.
You can read the full release notes for the update on the official site. The patch is around 6GB, and it’s available to download now.