Xbox has officially unveiled its Forza Horizon 6 Limited Edition Xbox Wireless Controller and Wireless Headset, the two flagship accessories tied to the upcoming Japan-set entry in the Forza Horizon franchise. Both pieces are up for preorder now through Xbox.com and major retailers, priced at US$89.99 for the controller and US$134.99 for the headset.

The reveal lines up with what a reliable insider had teased earlier this month, but Xbox has now locked in the full design, pricing, and feature set, alongside a matching 8BitDo charging dock. The collection leans hard into the Horizon Festival’s new Japanese setting, with translucent shells, neon colour pops, and details pulled straight from the country’s street racing culture.

Forza Horizon 6 Limited Edition Controller Design And Features

The controller is one of the boldest Xbox has put out in a while. Its transparent cyan blue top case fades into a metallic gradient, accented with volt green, hot pink, and silver. A silver metallic D-pad sits alongside two-tone rubberised diamond grips, and the Horizon Festival logo is printed on the battery door.

Xbox has confirmed the design draws from the Touge roads, the narrow mountain passes across Japan that are widely regarded as the birthplace of drifting. A top-down view of those winding routes is stretched across the body of the controller as a race track graphic.

On the functionality side, it keeps the standard Xbox Wireless Controller feature set: up to 40 hours of battery life, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and compatibility with Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, mobile, and cloud devices through Xbox Wireless and Bluetooth.

Forza Horizon 6 Limited Edition Headset Design And Features

The headset carries the same colour palette, with transparent cyan, volt green, and hot pink accents. Pit crew aesthetics inform the hot pink logo, racetrack-inspired graphics are printed inside the ear cups, and a bold “HORIZON” graphic runs along the adjustable headband. The boom mic carries a Forza logo backed in hot pink metallic.

Where the headset really leans into the Forza fan service is with its custom sound effects. Turning the headset on and off, pairing, muting, and other actions trigger audio cues that blend a Japanese V8 engine note with the Forza Horizon 6 UI. It supports Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, and DTS Headphone:X for spatial audio, and on Windows 11 PCs and handhelds, Bluetooth LE Audio enables richer stereo and super wideband stereo voice during party chat.

Battery life sits at up to 20 hours of rechargeable playtime, and like the controller, no dongle or base station is needed.

Read More: Forza Horizon 6 Japan Map Revealed, Spanning Tokyo to the Snow-Covered Alps

Read More: Xbox CEO Admits Game Pass Is ‘Too Expensive’, Signals Pricing Overhaul

Pricing, Preorders, And The 8BitDo Charging Dock

Both accessories are available to preorder from Xbox.com, the Microsoft Store, and local retailers. Alongside them, Xbox has confirmed a third piece rounding out the collection: the 8BitDo Charging Dock for Xbox Wireless Controllers, designed to match the Limited Edition set.

The dock is compatible with Xbox Series X|S controllers, ships with a 1100mAh rechargeable battery pack and battery door, and charges a controller in roughly three hours. Magnetic alignment handles placement, and built-in protection guards against overcharging and overheating.

Xbox has not publicly confirmed a price for the 8BitDo dock at the time of the announcement.

Asha Shar Comments On The Collection

Xbox CEO Asha Shar spoke to the reveal on X, saying, “Everything about Forza Horizon 6 is beautiful. The accessories had to be too.” The quote frames the accessories as an extension of the game’s visual identity rather than a standard tie-in product, which tracks with how much the controller and headset lean on the Japan setting for design cues.

Everything about Forza Horizon 6 is beautiful. The accessories had to be too. pic.twitter.com/q7ATs9wdRL

— Asha (@asha_shar) April 20, 2026

How The Collection Fits Into Forza Horizon 6

Forza Horizon 6 is taking the Horizon Festival to Japan for the first time, and the accessory line reads as a direct extension of that setting. The Touge road graphic on the controller, the V8 engine sound effects on the headset, and the overall neon Japanese street racing palette give the collection a clearer narrative hook than previous Limited Edition Horizon accessories, which have typically leaned on regional colours alone.

For collectors who have picked up previous Horizon accessories across the franchise’s run through Colorado, Australia, the UK, and Mexico, this release continues the pattern of tying hardware design to each game’s host country, and it arrives ahead of the game’s launch to give fans a reason to jump in early.

The post Forza Horizon 6 Limited Edition Xbox Controller and Headset Revealed With Preorders Live Now appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Playground Games has pulled back the curtain on the full Forza Horizon 6 map, and it’s a sprawling slice of Japan that stretches from the neon-lit streets of Tokyo City all the way up to the snowy peaks of the Japanese Alps.

This is Horizon Japan! From the iconic downtown streets of Tokyo City all the way to the snowy Japanese Alps, #ForzaHorizon6 introduces our most dense and vertical map yet.

Which roads are you most excited to cruise and drift with your friends? pic.twitter.com/78GmkqzsWt

— Forza Horizon (@ForzaHorizon) April 8, 2026

The map was shared on the official Forza Horizon X (formerly Twitter) account, giving players their first proper look at the terrain they’ll be tearing through when the game launches on 19 May 2026.

What The Full Map Looks Like

The revealed image shows the map in its Summer Season variant, covering a massive spread of environments. Tokyo City dominates the eastern portion as the largest urban area ever featured in a Forza Horizon game, reportedly five times bigger than Forza Horizon 5’s Guanajuato. Beyond the city, the map fans out into coastal roads, rural countryside, and mountainous terrain capped with snow in the Alps region.

Playground Games described it as their “most dense and vertical map yet,” which lines up with what we can see. The verticality is a big deal here, as Japan’s geography naturally lends itself to elevation changes, tight mountain passes, and layered city streets that previous Horizon maps haven’t really explored to this degree.

Seasonal Changes Will Reshape The Map

One detail worth paying attention to is that the map is specifically labelled “Summer Season.” This strongly suggests that the terrain, road conditions, and points of interest will shift as the seasons rotate, much like the system in Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5. Playground Games has confirmed that seasonal changes will “truly inform the world,” affecting how spring, summer, autumn, and winter alter the tone, activity, and sound of the environment.

In practical terms, that means the Alpine roads blanketed in snow during summer could look and drive very differently come winter, and areas like Tokyo’s cherry blossom-lined streets will likely transform during the Sakura season. How exactly points of interest and available routes change with each rotation is something players will have to discover at launch.

Mount Fuji Is Visible But Not Driveable

For anyone hoping to send a Nissan Skyline up the slopes of Mount Fuji, you’re out of luck. While the iconic volcano has appeared prominently in promotional material and trailers, it has been confirmed that Mount Fuji will not be an explorable part of the map. It’ll serve as a backdrop rather than a destination, which may disappoint some fans but isn’t entirely surprising given the scale challenges involved.

Tokyo City As The Centrepiece

Tokyo City is clearly the flagship area of the map. The urban zone includes multiple distinct districts, each with their own identity, from the neon-lit downtown core featuring landmarks like Shibuya Crossing and Tokyo Tower, through to the suburbs, docklands, and industrial zones. Art director Don Arceta has described the city as “one of our most detailed and layered environments to date,” and it’s designed to reward exploration with shortcuts, hidden routes, and varied driving experiences across different density levels.

Outside the city, the map transitions into coastal stretches, lowland countryside, and the Alpine region. The contrast between tight urban drifting and open mountain touge runs is exactly the kind of variety that Japan’s geography makes possible, and it looks like Playground Games has leaned into that hard.

Launch Details And Early Access

Forza Horizon 6 launches on 19 May 2026 for Xbox Series X|S and PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam. Premium Edition owners get four days of early access starting 15 May. Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers can play the Standard Edition from day one at no extra cost, with the option to purchase the Premium Upgrade for early access. A PlayStation 5 version is confirmed for later in 2026, though no specific date has been announced.

The game ships with over 550 cars, a heavy emphasis on JDM classics, and new features like Touge Battles and cooperative building through the upgraded CoLab toolset. With the map now out in the open, expect Playground Games to ramp up the reveals as we get closer to launch.

The post Forza Horizon 6 Japan Map Revealed, Spanning Tokyo to the Snow-Covered Alps appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

After more than a decade on the track, Real Racing 3 is officially heading for the finish line. EA has confirmed that the long running mobile racing game will be sunset in stages, with full server shutdown scheduled for March 19, 2026.

📣 Important Announcement:

Dear Racers,

The last twelve years have been a remarkable journey with all of you on Real Racing 3. Unfortunately, we’ve decided to retire from the race now.

We’ve made the difficult decision to sunset Real Racing 3. The game will be delisted… pic.twitter.com/b3dMmGmGF8

— Real Racing 3 (@realracing) December 18, 2025

The announcement was shared directly with players alongside a heartfelt farewell, thanking the community for twelve years of races, rivalries, and unforgettable moments on mobile.

A 12 Year Run Comes to an End

First released in 2013 as the sequel to Real Racing 2, Real Racing 3 quickly became one of the most recognisable and ambitious mobile racing games ever made. Over the years, it expanded with real world tracks, officially licensed cars from major manufacturers, and online races supporting up to eight players.

Despite controversy surrounding its freemium model, the game remained hugely popular, reaching over 200 million downloads and setting a benchmark for realism on mobile racing platforms. After twelve years of continuous updates, EA says the time has come to step away.

Shutdown Timeline Explained

The sunset process will roll out in two main phases, giving existing players time to enjoy the game and use their remaining resources.

December 18, 2025 – Delisting and Purchases Disabled

• Real Racing 3 has been removed from the App Store and Google Play for new players
• In app purchases are now disabled, no real money can be spent
• Existing players can still re download the game from their app library
• A final update grants all players 1,000 Gold, an Audi S1 e-tron quattro, and a 2023 Rimac Nevera
• Players who already own the cars will receive extra Gold instead

March 19, 2026 – Server Shutdown

• All servers will be permanently shut down
• The game will no longer be playable
• Any unused in game currency will expire

EA strongly recommends that players spend their remaining currency before the shutdown date.

What Delisting Means for Players

Delisting means Real Racing 3 will no longer appear in digital storefronts for new downloads. However, if you have downloaded the game before, you can still reinstall it from your account history until March 19, 2026.

All purchases made before December 18, 2025 will remain usable until the servers go offline.

A Farewell Gift to the Community

To mark the end of the journey, EA is rolling out one final reward package to every player. This includes 1,000 Gold, the Audi S1 e-tron quattro, and the 2023 Rimac Nevera, a fitting send off for a game built around high performance machines.

EA thanked the community for every lap and victory, calling the decision a difficult one after such a long and passionate run.

Part of a Larger Wave of EA Shutdowns

Real Racing 3 now joins a growing list of EA titles confirmed to be shutting down in 2026. Other games set to go offline include Anthem, The Sims Mobile, and NBA Live 19.

The closure has once again sparked discussion around game preservation, especially for online only titles that disappear completely once servers are turned off. For many fans, Real Racing 3’s sunset highlights how much of gaming history can be lost when live service games reach the end of the road.

One Last Chance to Race

While it is never easy to say goodbye, players still have a few months left to take one last drive, unlock cars, and relive memories before the checkered flag falls for good. After twelve years, Real Racing 3’s legacy as one of mobile gaming’s most influential racing titles is firmly secured.

The post Real Racing 3 Is Taking Its Final Lap After 12 Years, Servers to Shut Down in 2026 appeared first on Shane the Gamer.