One of the major additions in Forza Horizon 6 is the Estate: a house with a huge empty lot attached to it where you can use the game’s new creation tools to build whatever you want. And what people want, it turns out, is XP and Skill Point farms that serve next to no purpose at all.
When Forza Horizon 6 first launched, these low-effort creations were just about all you could find when browsing community Estate creations. Now, I’m happy to report that things have improved. You can find mansions with parking garages and hangout spaces attached. There are a lot of beautiful arrangements of cherry trees. Some people have created their own drift and racetracks. Someone even built a full-size recreation of Laguna Seca Raceway.
But still, XP and Skill Point farm builds dominate the trending and popular tabs on the Estate browser. This is perhaps predictable, if creatively disappointing. But what really confuses me about them is this: in Forza Horizon — certainly in Forza Horizon 6 — XP and Skill Points serve barely any purpose.
Progression through the game is achieved by earning points in the Horizon Festival and Discover Japan tracks. Your experience level doesn’t unlock anything at all, apart from a Wheelspin — a chance to win some credits, a collectible, or a prize car — every few levels. Wheelspins do give you a slim chance of landing a rare car, perhaps one of the sought-after Forza Editions. But they’re not especially rewarding, nor are they hard to come by in the normal run of play.
Otherwise, XP is just… a number. Player levels go high in Forza Horizon, but don’t really indicate anything other than how long you’ve been playing the game. (I’m level 159, and I’ve played for around 60 hours. These numbers mean nothing to you, and nor should they. They certainly don’t indicate any skill on my part.) It’s the emptiest kind of bragging rights.
Also, Estate XP farms don’t actually work. The most popular XP farm in the game is just a row of 5,000 XP bonus boards you can run over. But in the Estate, these are just props that reward precisely this much XP: zero. You can farm XP, however, from a Skill farm, if you have a car with an appropriate perk unlocked.
Skill Point farms are slightly less pointless — slightly. Skill Points are earned by chaining together driving skills, like drifting, jumping, or destroying scenery. A typical Skill Point farm is just a long row of stuff to knock over with some small jumps so you can chain an incredibly high number of destruction and air skills at once, and max out your skill chain in a minute or so, awarding the maximum possible 10 Skill Points.
Skill Points unlock perks in each car’s individual Car Mastery tree. And guess what the overwhelming majority of perks do? Make it easier to earn more Skill Points.
There are a few exceptions. A tiny handful of cars unlock other, exclusive cars at the top of their Car Mastery trees for a whopping 50 Skill Points. And Legendary rarity or Forza Edition cars usually have Car Mastery Perks that offer big cash payouts or Super Wheelspins. But these are one-time-only rewards, and there are only so many such cars in the game.
Mostly, Skill Points are a progression loop with no end and no purpose. Skill Points beget more Skill Points. And XP begets… nothing at all.
I don’t blame players for building these farms or for downloading and using them. It’s hardly a cheat when the systems are so pointless to begin with. But I do blame developer Playground Games for playing to our weakest instincts with these nonsensical “number go up” systems. I love the Forza Horizon games, and Forza Horizon 6 is as excellent as all its predecessors, but they do have a tendency to indulge in empty dopamine-hit design that only serves to distract from their real beauty and substance.
I decry it all… but not before I’ve used this Skill farm to get the 1974 Honda Civic RS from the 2023 Civic’s Mastery tree. How else do you expect me to get it? By playing the game?!
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