Playground Games brings Forza Horizon 6 to life at the British Motor Museum

Where digital car culture meets the real home of British motoring

When Playground Games began exploring the idea of a Forza Horizon 6 exhibition with the British Motor Museum, the opportunity was clear from the start. This was not simply a chance to display cars from one of the world’s best-loved driving game franchises. It was a chance to bring digital car culture into the real world, create a physical expression of the Horizon Festival and connect gaming, automotive design, engineering and community in one place.

Discussions between Playground Games and the British Motor Museum began 9 months in advance, with the original focus on developing an exhibition that would reflect the breadth, energy and creativity of Forza Horizon 6. Once that vision was confirmed, both teams recognised that the launch deserved something more ambitious. With the game released in May, the stars aligned to deliver Forza Horizon 6: The Experience launch event at the same time, turning the Museum into a real-world celebration of the cars, people and creativity behind the game.

Over three months, the event grew organically from a launch into a full-scale Horizon-inspired experience. The result was a one-day festival that welcomed 5,000 visitors, brought together fans from across the country and created a powerful showcase for the relationship between virtual and physical car culture.

More than an exhibition

For Playground Games, the core objective was to create an experience that felt true to Horizon. That meant more than placing cars in a gallery. Every decision was made to ensure the event reflected the colour, energy and atmosphere of the game, from Horizon festival flags and banners to music, partner activations, live demonstrations and hands-on ways for visitors to engage.

The exhibition itself was designed to celebrate the range and breadth of vehicles that feature in Forza Horizon 6, including iconic Japanese cars chosen to reflect the game’s setting in Japan and its connection with JDM culture. The line-up gave visitors the chance to see vehicles from across different classes and manufacturers in one place, from the unusual and characterful to the high-performance and aspirational.

As Playground Games explained, “It’s all about the cars.” By bringing those cars out of the game and into real life, players and Museum visitors could get close to the machines that inspire the Forza Horizon world. The breadth of vehicles was central to the experience, creating moments that could only happen in a setting capable of connecting automotive heritage, contemporary car culture and digital storytelling.

A real-world Horizon Festival

The launch event went further, transforming the Museum environment into something that felt recognisably Horizon. Partners including Hospital Records, Arctic Trucks, RDX Drift Academy, Adrenaline Collective, Drift Matsuri, Robocode UK, Saitoworks and SpecialEffect helped shape a day that combined live entertainment, automotive spectacle, coding workshops, community engagement and gaming.

Hospital Records provided music, helping to create the festival atmosphere, while Arctic Trucks displayed vehicles connected to the game. Drift demonstrations and specialist automotive activations brought movement and energy to the event, while Robocode UK introduced future coding experts to the basics of game creation. This combination was important. Forza Horizon 6: The Experience was designed to appeal to existing players, automotive enthusiasts, families and curious newcomers, creating a shared space where different communities could meet around a common love of cars.

For many, the greatest lure was Sung Kang, Hollywood actor, director and Forza Horizon Ambassador, who spent the entire day at the launch event meeting fans, talking to the Forza Community and enjoying the Japanese car meet. He is a true JDM icon and his involvement in the launch event made it even more special for everyone involved.

The inclusion of state-of-the-art racing rigs was also critical. Visitors were able to play Forza Horizon 6 while surrounded by real cars from the game, creating an immersive connection between screen and showroom. For existing fans, it offered a new way to experience the title. For Museum visitors less familiar with gaming, it opened a window into the creativity, technology and craft behind modern driving games.

Why the British Motor Museum

For Playground Games, the British Motor Museum was the obvious choice. Located centrally and set within a region rich in automotive and gaming heritage, the Museum offered the right combination of relevance, space and cultural fit.

The connection between the two organisations was clear. The British Motor Museum celebrates the stories of Britain’s automotive industry, while Playground Games has helped shape the modern global language of digital driving culture from its base in the Midlands. Both organisations speak to communities that care deeply about cars, creativity and innovation. Bringing them together created a natural bridge between heritage and future-facing technology.

The crossover between Forza Horizon fans and Museum visitors was also significant. The Museum attracts people with a passion for cars, design, engineering and motoring history. The Forza Horizon community shares that passion through a digital lens, collecting cars, designing liveries, exploring environments and engaging with automotive culture in interactive ways. The launch event gave both audiences a reason to come together.

For the British Motor Museum, the project also demonstrated the wider value of the venue as a platform for events where industry shapes what’s next. This was not a traditional exhibition launch. It was a live example of how the Museum can support events that sit at the intersection of automotive, gaming, technology, STEM learning and popular culture.

Built through partnership

As with any project of this scale, there were challenges. The biggest was time. The idea for the exhibition came together later than would normally be ideal for a project of this complexity, meaning both teams were working at pace from the outset. However, the alignment between Playground Games and the British Motor Museum helped keep the project moving.

The event was project-managed by teams from both organisations. Their work, alongside a wide group of suppliers and partners, helped ensure the event retained its creative ambition while being delivered safely, professionally and to a high standard.

That collaboration mattered because the launch needed to feel authentic. It had to work for gamers, for car enthusiasts, for families, for partners and for the wider Museum audience. The final experience reflected a close working relationship between the teams, which developed as they became more and more invested in each other’s success, creating a deep respect for each other. This resulted in them being able to swiftly respond to the evolving scale of the event while keeping visitor experience at the centre.

A moment for the community

Although the exhibition delivered the original vision, the launch event exceeded expectations. Playground Games knew the event would attract strong interest because of the success of the Horizon franchise, but the scale of the response went beyond what had been anticipated.

The most powerful measure of success was the reaction of the community. Fans travelled hundreds of miles to attend, and the enthusiasm for Forza Horizon 6, Playground Games and the Museum was visible throughout the day. Visitors enjoyed the drift shows, explored the cars on display, took part in the interactive elements and spoke directly to the developers behind the game.

For the Playground Games team, that response was especially meaningful. The launch gave visitors the chance to meet the people who make the game, understand more about the development process and appreciate the craft, detail and technical skill behind the Forza Horizon series. It also gave the team a moment to see the impact of their work in a live, shared environment.

As Playground Games reflected, seeing 5,000 visitors walking around the Museum, enjoying the displays and talking to the developers was “incredibly special – and a month later, people were still talking about the event.”

What it delivered

Forza Horizon 6: The Experience launch event showed what can happen when the right venue, the right partner and the right idea come together. It brought the world of Forza offline without losing the energy, inclusivity and creativity that make the game so successful. It gave visitors the chance to experience cars in a new way, while giving existing fans a deeper connection to the people, vehicles and ideas behind the game.

For Playground Games, it was a chance to celebrate a major launch with its community in a setting that understood the importance of cars, culture and storytelling. For the British Motor Museum, it demonstrated the Museum’s ability to support ambitious, multi-layered events that connect heritage with innovation and create direct access to Britain’s automotive story.

The partnership is also continuing, with further events between Playground Games and the Museum already in planning. For a launch built around bringing the digital and physical worlds together, the event did more than mark the release of a game. It created a live experience that showed how automotive culture is evolving, and why the British Motor Museum is such a powerful place to explore what comes next.