In this post, we will highlight some of the features in Forza Horizon 6 [PEGI 3], that are related to the motor accessibility of the game. This will include an overview of options such as the Driving Assists, the Offline Game Speed option and the new Auto Drive feature. The use of these features may help by reducing the number of controls needed to drive and/or the accuracy of timing responses required.
For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Forza Horizon 6 is a driving game, playable either in solo (offline or online) or co-op mode, in which you explore Japan entering races and challenges. These may be a cross-country or street race, a time attack, a food delivery challenge or any number of other driving missions. You complete these, initially to qualify and enter the Horizon Festival after which you then compete in festival events which will unlock wristbands and more cars.
For this post we looked at the game using a game controller on an Xbox Series X console and so we will reference the Xbox controller inputs. Compatible steering wheel peripherals are also supported. It is also available on Windows PC on which keyboard is also supported (with mouse for camera movement by default). It has been announced on PlayStation 5, but a release date has yet to be determined.
The below settings can be accessed straight away on loading the game by pressing the X button on the initial title screen or by navigating to Settings in the pause menu once you have started the game. We will go through each of the menus these settings are found within.
Difficulty Menu Options (including Drivatar Difficulty and Driving Assists)
You can access the difficulty menu via Settings. You cannot access the difficulty settings during a race. For the assists to take effect, you will need to set a waypoint first. Adjusting any of the below settings has an impact on the Difficulty Bonus Credit received, which is displayed on-screen when adjusting each setting.
- Drivatar Difficulty (default = Average) – Setting description: ‘Adjust the skill of your Drivatar opponents’. Drivatars are any opponents controlled by the game. There are a wide range of levels, which will affect your opponents’ competitiveness.
The Tourist setting has been carried over from FH5. Playground Games explains that this ‘ensures everyone has a fun experience, no matter their skill level. Seamlessly lead every race as you take in the breathtaking sights of Japan.’
- Driving Assists Preset (default = Medium) – Setting description: ‘Automatically adjusts the driving assists below to create a gameplay experience that matches the difficulty level you choose.’ This adjusts the Braking and Steering assists, Traction Control, Shifting, Driving Line, Rewind and Launch Control options.
For instance, choosing the ‘Assisted Steering and Braking’ preset would turn on ‘Assisted’ Braking, ‘Assisted’ Steering, Stability Control and the ‘Full’ Driving Line option. Choosing ‘All Assists’ will also turn on the ‘Auto-Steering’ steering assist, which will keep your vehicle to the driving line without needing to steer. Each of these settings affected by changing the preset can also be adjusted individually.
- Braking (default = Anti-Lock On) – Setting description: ‘Assisted braking will detect if you are approaching a corner at too high a speed and attempt to slow you down. ABS requires the driver to apply the brakes, but helps alter brake pressure to maintain maximum braking force at the threshold of wheel lock-up.’
Using Assisted braking will only apply to corners and not other vehicles, both within a race or when on the open roads following a waypoint. Therefore you will either need to knock the vehicle out of your path, reduce acceleration or brake to avoid colliding, or steer around them.
- Steering (default = Standard) – Setting description: ‘Assisted and Auto-Steering will use Forza‘s artificial intelligence to guide your steering along your navigation route. Standard steering gives you full control but dampens some physical effects to make driving easier.’
With Auto-Steering, like Assisted Braking, this only applies to corners and so you will need to either manually steer around vehicles in your path, knock them out of the way, or use braking (or reduce the throttle) to avoid them. If you get knocked off course, you may need to apply reverse if you get stuck against an obstacle. Holding accelerate should eventually get you back to the driving line.
NB – As an alternative or additional option to using Auto-Steering you can use the Auto Drive feature (D-pad Down then D-pad Left) to automatically take you to an event or waypoint. Using Auto Drive will try to automatically avoid vehicles, but this is not always possible. You can also use the feature within offline races and events. Please see Auto Drive section below for more detail.
- Driving Line (default = Full) – Setting description: ‘Draw a line on the track representing the suggested driving path. Blue means accelerate. Red means slow down. With Braking Only, the line will appear only on turns where you need to brake.’ As well as aiding players to stay on the track and take the best racing line, this can be used to help players using assists to show your vehicle’s route ahead, helping to know when to apply inputs, such as braking when approaching a vehicle in front taking the same driving line as you.
- Rewind (default = On) – Setting description: ‘Rewind enables you to reverse time to a point of your choosing to drive a section over again.’ In offline game modes, both in a race and in the open world, you can use this (Y button) to go back a couple of seconds to avoid a crash, make a checkpoint or take a better driving line. You can do this multiple times to rewind time further.
The below video shows example gameplay using the ‘All Assists’ Driving Assists Preset, which sets steering to ‘Auto-Steering’ and braking to ‘Assisted’. RT is the only input being used here (held/released) for throttle to accelerate:
Auto Drive (Automatically travel to your destination)
Whilst not an optional setting, we have added a short section on this feature to highlight its potential use for improving motor accessibility. Auto Drive allows you to automatically drive to a waypoint without needing to use any driving control inputs. This is done through ‘Anna’, your digital assistant, using Down on the D-pad and then Left on the D-pad.
You can also activate this in offline solo races and other events to race for you. When activated, an onscreen ‘Activated Race Mode’ message will appear. How well it drives for you and your finish positioning, will depend on the Drivatar Difficulty level.
Some challenges may not be accessible using Auto Drive, such as ‘Drift Zone – Inner City Run’ which does not have a formal start line, so you get points for drifting between two points. I did find I was able to set a waypoint and use Auto-Steering and Assisted Braking to drift and score on the challenge, using RT to accelerate and A for Handbrake.
You also cannot use Auto Drive when on your estate (a sandbox area on the map where you can build your own house, garages and even race track). However, Driving Assists such as Auto-Steering and Assisted Braking will work, so with a waypoint, you could still drive with only RT to accelerate.
Occasionally, you may also find that your vehicle stops short a few metres before your event destination, so you need to manually drive towards it to be able to enter. The same is true if collecting the mascots.
You can set a waypoint though the World Map either by pausing the game (Menu button) or using the View button to open the map. You can also set a destination using the ‘What’s Next’ feature, also accessed through the pause menu (or through Anna using Right on D-pad after using D-pad Down to activate Anna).
When in an event, such as a road race, it will already have a route set to follow so you do not need to manually give the GPS a waypoint. On completing an event, you are shown the ‘What’s Next’ screen and so can set an new destination to either travel to using Auto Drive, or manually (or using driving assists). If Auto Drive is already on following your last event, it will remain on and will drive you to your selected event. If Auto Drive is on when you enter an event, it will remain on when you start the event and the ‘Activated Race Mode’ message will appear onscreen.
When using Auto Drive, you can activate cinematic camera mode (LB). To exit Auto Drive, use any driving input (Left Stick, LT or RT etc).
The video below shows examples of Auto Drive in use, both travelling to an event and during an event:
Accessibility Menu Options (including Story Progress & Offline Game Speed)
Within the accessibility menu, the following options are related to the motor accessibility of the game.
- Story Progress – Setting description: ‘Standard Story Progress requires that you complete all Challenges in a Story Chapter before moving on to the next one. Guaranteed Story Progress will ensure that you move forward through the Story regardless of challenge results.’
- Offline Game Speed – Setting description: ‘By reducing the Game Speed, the game will play in slow motion, giving you more time to react to on-screen events. This setting is only in effect when playing offline, and does not affect game audio.’ This allows you to reduce the speed of gameplay incrementally to as low as 40%. This will apply when in the open world and within events, such as races. Depending on the driving assists you are using, this can allow for more time to respond and react to what is happening onscreen, giving you more time to break to avoid a collision or to steer and take the best line on a corner.
The below video shows example Offline Game Speed gameplay when set at 100%, 70% and then 40% speeds (recorded using Auto-Steering and Assisted Braking options):
Controls Menu Options (including Layout Options & Custom Remapping)
By selecting ‘Change Input Mapping’ in the Controls menu, you can choose between existing controller profile layouts or remap each action individually to create a custom layout.
By default (Layout 1), for the main driving controls, RT is used to Accelerate, LT for Brake/Reverse (Hold) and left and right directions on the Left Stick are used for steering.
The number of these controls required and how much they are used will be affected by the driving assists you are using (see Difficulty Menu Options section above). Some of the layouts that alter these core driving controls, include:
- Layout 8 – This moves Accelerate to A and Brake/Reverse (Hold) to X.
- Layout 9 – This moves Accelerate to A and Brake/Reverse (Hold) to B.
- Layout 12 – This moves Accelerate to Right Stick Up and Brake/Reverse (Hold) to Right Stick Down.
- Layout 14 – This moves Accelerate to Left Stick Up and Brake/Reverse (Hold) to Left Stick Down, meaning the steering and accelerate and brake can all be done on the Left Stick.
Many of the other inputs on an Xbox controller are used for either non-driving actions, such as to Activate Anna (D-pad Down) to use Auto Drive (D-pad Left) or Rewind (Y). Others are for driving, but dependant on driving style (eg A for Handbrake) or other options chosen. For instance, manual gear changing would require Clutch (LB), Shift Up (B) and Shift Down (X). These can all be changed depending on the layout chosen or can be customised by remapping each of them individually.
The below video shows the full control list for Layout 1 and the main driving controls for layouts 9, 12 and 14:
Whilst the driving controls can be remapped, some of those used in other scenarios, such as the Estate Build, EventLab World Builder, Drone or Photo modes cannot. In addition, some of these are additional controls to those required for driving. For instance, the Right Stick is required to move the camera reticle in both these modes. This is also used in driving to move the camera, but this is not essential and it can be remapped.
Advanced Controls Menu Options (including Steering, Throttle & Braking Dead Zones)
Amongst the options in the Advanced Controls menu are dead zone settings. These are available for many of the analog actions in the game, such as steering, accelerating and braking (deceleration) and includes adjustable settings for both the inner and outer dead zones.
Adjusting the inner dead zone will affect how much the joystick needs to move before the input is recognised (eg at what point the vehicle starts to turn in response to the Left Stick being moved). Adjusting the outer dead zone will affect when the maximum value is reached (eg full lock when steering). These options include:
- Steering Axis Deadzone Inside – Setting description: ‘This sets the size of the inner deadzone for steering. The larger this deadzone, the more the steering will need to be moved before the car begins to turn.’
- Steering Axis Deadzone Outside – Setting description: ‘This sets the size of the outer deadzone. The larger this deadzone, the less the steering input will be recognised by the game.’
- Acceleration Axis Deadzone Inside – Setting description: ‘This sets the size of the inner deadzone for the throttle. The larger this deadzone, the more the throttle will need to be pressed before the car begins to accelerate.’
- Acceleration Axis Deadzone Outside – Setting description: ‘This sets the size of the outer deadzone for the throttle. The larger this deadzone, the less the throttle will need to be pressed for the car to accelerate as fast as possible.
- Deceleration Axis Deadzone Inside – Setting description: ‘This sets the size of the inner deadzone for brakes. The larger this deadzone, the more the brakes will need to be pressed before the car begins to slow.’
- Deceleration Axis Deadzone Outside – Setting description: This sets the size of the outer deadzone for the brake. The larger this deadzone, the less the brake will need to be pressed for the car to brake as sharply as possible.
We hope this post has been useful in getting an overview of some of the features in Forza Horizon 6 that may improve the motor accessibility of the game for you. For more information on accessibility in Forza Horizon 6, please visit their Accessibility Support page, here: Forza Horizon 6 Accessibility Support. To see which Accessibility Tags the game has, please see the Forza Horizon 6 store page: Forza Horizon 6 Xbox
SpecialEffect’s Developer Resource:
For video examples of how developers have improved the motor accessibility of their specific games, please visit https://specialeffectdevkit.info/
Whether you are a developer working on a driving game or another genre, more examples of how you might offer different levels of challenge, like Forza Horizon 6‘s Drivatar Difficulty setting does, can be found in module 6.3, Game Difficulty on the SpecialEffect DevKit.
For instances of features in other games that have allowed players to adjust the timing required, like Forza Horizon 6‘s Game Speed option does, please see module 6.4, Timing Elements.
For other examples of assists like Forza Horizon 6‘s Assisted Steering setting, please see module 6.5, Analog Action Assists and for additional illustrations of settings like the Auto-Steering and Auto Drive options, please see module 7.4, Automatic Analog Actions.
Whilst many of the modules in the SpecialEffect DevKit might be applicable to your game, we’ve compiled a selection of modules which may be considered particularly relevant for many games which contain driving. This selection can be found under our Driving Starting Point on the DevKit.