This year’s Xbox Developer_Direct is on January 22nd, and Playground Games is bringing both of its big titles – Forza Horizon 6 and Fable. The former will receive its first-ever gameplay reveal while the latter gets a deep dive into its lovely fantasy world. Interestingly, while Forza Horizon 6 is PS5-bound at a later date, it seems that Fable could be a day-and-date multiplatform release.
This is according to VGC’s Andy Robinson, who shared on the site’s latest podcast, “Fable’s day and date. That’s what I’ve been told. Those are the sort of details where insiders misstep, right? Those are the sorts of details that can be changed a week before or a day before. The other stuff is kind of like a bit more set in stone. Yes, it’s coming to PlayStation 5.” Perhaps more intriguing is that the studio has reportedly been “targeting PS5 for a while.”
Why isn’t Forza Horizon 6 getting the same treatment, especially with how successful Forza Horizon 5 was on PS5? It’s also arguably the bigger brand, appealing to a larger spectrum of consumers. Robinson doesn’t know the “full story,” but heard that, allegedly, “It just wasn’t ready. I don’t know how true that is, because I mean, it’s going to be absolutely massive, but that game would be absolutely massive if it’s launching on everything day one, right? You’d kind of think that’s a bit of a hindrance for them.
“I mean, even Xbox stalwarts are starting to drift away from playing on the console now. It’ll have a humongous PC launch, but PS5, I mean, look at Indiana Jones: The Great Circle. It did so well when it came out on PS5 afterwards.” And yet here we are with Forza Horizon 6 arriving who-knows-when. That said, Robinson imagines that the team (which includes Turn 10 Studios) will “do their best to get that out as soon as they can.”
Fable is confirmed for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and hasn’t really had an extensive showing since its announcement in July 2020. Plenty of stories have circulated about development troubles, and though its delay from 2025 to 2026 didn’t inspire much confidence, Xbox Game Studios head Craig Duncan promised it would be “worth the wait.”
As for Forza Horizon 6, it’s finally taking the series to Japan while delivering Playground Games’ biggest map to date. You can expect seasons to play a major part in the gameplay, and there will be a “broad range” of cars, but the team is also looking at capturing the nation’s atmosphere in every possible way. The open-world racer is rumored to launch in the first half of 2026, which means a potential release date announcement during the Developer_Direct.
