Playground Games’ massive launch of Forza Horizon 6 has completely taken over the internet, smashing milestones with millions of active players in its first week exploring a hyper-dense, neon-drenched digital Japan. But if you’ve already jumped into the Series 1 Summer playlist to start grinding for that legendary 2008 Mazda Furai, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve run headfirst into a wall with this week’s “Gazoo Racer” challenge.

Stuck? No problem. If you’re just trying to grab your weekly points without the headache, here is exactly what you need to do.

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First Things First: How to Actually Unlock the Race

The Hakone Nanamagari Touge is hidden behind a bit of campaign progression. It’s located down in the Nangan region, which is out to the southwest of Tokyo City.

To get it to show up, you need to keep playing through the main story until you gather enough Wristbands to level up your “Discover Japan Stamps” to the Blue or Traveller Stamp tier. Once you’ve unlocked that region of the map, you don’t even have to wait for an icon—just physically drive your car down south onto that massive winding mountain road.

How to Actually Win the Touge Battle

Here’s what the streets are saying:

• Keep it stock (or build for B-Class grip): It is incredibly tempting to slap a 900-horsepower drift swap on your GR86, but you should avoid. Keep it stock or throw on a balanced B-class handling tune.
• Brake early: The stone guardrails on this mountain are brutal. If you throw the car into a blind, wild slide, you’re going to smash the wall and lose all your momentum. Use a “slow in, fast out” strategy for the corners.
• Work smarter, not harder: If you’re still struggling to take first place after a few tries, just lower the Drivatar difficulty in your settings.

The Reviews

Speaking of what the streets are saying, here is one Reddit user’s review:

I’ve been playing the Forza franchise for 12 years. I’ve played every game from Horizon 2 onwards in their prime years (including both FH2 360 and XB1), and I have since gone back and played Horizon 1 as well. I love this franchise. For a bit of brief context about what I think of each game, I loved the first three games. Those are all masterpieces in their own way, and if I got into why, I’d be here all day. Horizon 4 was still very good, but nowhere near as good as the others, and it felt like a let down at the time. Horizon 5, I’d rather forget about. That game was pretty bad, and I applaud myself for putting up with it for nearly 5 years.

Forza Horizon 6 feels like it’s breathing new life back into the franchise. When it got announced, I was expecting a reskinned FH5 with a new map, but they’ve really knocked it out of the park with this one. Even though it’s early days, this feels like Forza Horizon is truly back.

Are you playing?

Featured Photo: Playground Games

Author Bio

Jael Rucker is the founder of Decked Out Magazine. She has previously worked as the Associate Commerce Editor at PureWow, focusing on analytics and trends to pitch stories and optimize articles that build and engage their audience. Her work has also been seen in Footwear News and WWD. Prior to 2024, she was the style and pop culture editor at ONE37pm for over three years, contributing numerous product reviews, brand profiles and fashion trend reports, which included interviewing Steph Curry, Snoop Dogg and more.