Forza Motorsport 6 was first unveiled at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan on January 12, 2015 — the same day Ford Motor Company publicly revealed its new Ford GT supercar. Turn 10 Studios entered an exclusive partnership with Ford, making the 2017 Ford GT the cover car and giving studio staffers early access to Ford's design teams while the GT was still in development. It was one of the few occasions a car and a major video game launched simultaneously, with aspects of the GT's design, including its active rear wing behavior, first revealed through the game.
Turn 10 continued its partnership with BBC automotive series Top Gear, incorporating the show's Dunsfold Aerodrome test track. Unlike previous installments, no commentary from Top Gear hosts appeared in the game itself.
Forza Motorsport 6 features simulation-based vehicle handling across more than 450 cars — more than twice the roster of Forza Motorsport 5 — and 27 tracks, seven of which were new to the franchise. Twenty-two tracks represent real-world locations; four are fictional. Races support up to 24 vehicles.
The game reintroduced rain and night racing, mechanics previously absent from earlier numbered entries. A new story mode called "Stories of Motorsport" provides approximately 70 hours of structured content. Championships are organized by vehicle manufacturer region, age, power output, drivetrain configuration, and racing discipline. Single exhibition races are also available. The game supports split-screen multiplayer and online play via Xbox Live.
Downloadable content was released monthly through August 2016, each pack adding seven cars. Notable expansions included a Porsche pack, a NASCAR pack with an additional track and racing campaign, and a 10-car Fast and the Furious franchise tie-in. Novelty cars from other properties also appeared, including the 2069 Chryslus Rocket from Fallout 4 and Dominic Toretto's 1970 Dodge Charger coinciding with the release of Furious 7.
Announced on March 1, 2016, Forza Motorsport 6: Apex was a free-to-play version for Windows 10, released on September 6, 2016. It offered 63 cars and 12 racing events with optional microtransactions, making it the first Forza title released on Windows. A Premium Edition followed on November 7, 2016, adding two car packs, the Nürburgring, and 15 exclusive events.
The audio team recorded intake, engine, and exhaust sounds from real cars using a looping model that shifts pitch over the rev range from full-throttle dyno runs. Vehicle recording was handled by Warner Bros. Post Production, using lavalier and omni microphones along with high-SPL mics and pre-amp attenuators for race cars that can reach 130 dB SPL.
Forza Motorsport 6 received positive reviews, holding an aggregated Metacritic score of 87 out of 100 from 85 reviews. Critics broadly agreed it improved on Forza Motorsport 5. The game's rain and night racing mechanics were widely praised for adding visual and physical variety. The Drivatar artificial intelligence — behavior profiles learned from actual player data — drew praise for unpredictability, though the track roster was criticized for repetitiveness by some reviewers.
Chris Carter of Destructoid called the content "more than a full game" given the expanded car and track counts. Ray Carsillo of Electronic Gaming Monthly considered it the best entry in the entire series and recommended it to all racing game fans. Luke Reilly of IGN called the weather system "both visually and physically impressive" and described it as a significant leap over Forza Motorsport 5, while noting that track conditions were fixed per event rather than dynamic across sessions.
By the end of 2015, the game had sold over one million copies. A June 2017 report from Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt cited a combined active player base of 4.8 million across Forza Motorsport 6 and Forza Horizon 3. Forza Motorsport 7 succeeded it in October 2017.