When a video game franchise commissions nine artists and launches an entire companion video series around them, you know it's thinking beyond the controller. That's exactly the kind of ambition Forza Horizon 6 is bringing as it sets its open world in Japan - and it's chosen a genuinely fitting guide for the journey.
Larry Chen, the documentary-style photographer celebrated for his deeply human portraits of car culture, has been named host of The Art of Driving, a companion series designed to pull the game's world into sharper, more real focus. According to Hypebeast, the series spotlights three of the nine artists commissioned to create original works for the game, threading together the visual identity of Forza Horizon 6 with the stories of the people behind it.
Why Larry Chen makes sense here
Chen's background isn't in gaming - it's in making car culture feel deeply personal. He's built a reputation for documentary work that treats cars not as machines but as cultural artifacts, and the people who love them as genuinely interesting subjects worth understanding. That sensibility fits neatly into what Forza Horizon has always tried to do: make driving feel like it means something.
Setting the sixth installment in Japan adds another layer to that. Japan's car culture is its own rich, layered world - from the precision engineering worship of its domestic manufacturers to the grassroots drift scenes, the kei car devotion, and the collector communities that treat automotive history like fine art. Bringing in a host who understands that intersection of cars, place, and identity isn't just good casting - it's the right creative call.
Art inside a racing game
The commissioned artist angle is worth pausing on. Nine artists creating in-game works for a racing title signals something bigger than the usual promotional push. It's an attempt to make the game's world feel genuinely inhabited - where the visuals have provenance and the cultural backdrop has been thought through rather than just rendered.
The Art of Driving series, with Chen at the front, exists to make that effort visible. It's the kind of companion content that can actually earn its place rather than just existing as marketing.
For anyone who cares about where games are going as cultural objects - not just entertainment products - Forza Horizon 6 is shaping up to be an interesting case study. And with Chen guiding the conversation, at least the human side of the story is in good hands.
