While Forza Horizon 6 may be gearing up for its official release on May 19th, some users found their way onto the track a bit earlier than expected. And in a weird turn of events, it seems as if Playground Games themselves are the culprit of the leak.
Too Fast, Kinda Furious
Over the weekend, Playground Games was most likely prepping the back end of Steam for the impending launch of Forza Horizon 6 later in May. As spotted by Insider Gaming via Reddit, users discovered that Playground Games inadvertently posted an unencrypted repository of Forza Horizon 6 files on Steam. The file size was about 155 GB, containing thousands of in-game assets, and some users claimed they could download the full game through nefarious means. Since the news broke, the issue was fixed swiftly, but reports claim that the build lacked online functionality and the game would crash immediately after the first race ended.
As for Playground Games, as of the time of writing this, they have yet to officially comment on the matter. There is also a growing speculation that the users who accessed Forza Horizon 6 early or attempted to connect to online servers could face a very justified hardware ban in the near future.
You Never Had Your Car
The story of Forza Horizon 6 leaking early wasn’t the first instance of a game of this caliber leaking early, and it certainly won’t be the last. Recently, there were reports of Pragmata leaking thanks to Capcom uploading preload files without the proper encryption. Death Stranding 2 is another title that experienced this same problem. The game leaking also stands as a major problem for developers, as they can suffer a significant loss in sales revenue thanks to leaks making their way online. Most importantly, leaked builds are often unfinished ones, so they could leave a very bad first impression on players, which in turn could set a bad tone out of the gate.
