Pirates Beat Forza Horizon 6's $100 Early Access by 5 Days

Paying $100 for four days of early access feels a lot worse when pirates got the game for free five days before that. Forza Horizon 6, Microsoft's massive Japan-set racing game scheduled for general release on May 19, appeared online over the weekend after what appears to be a catastrophic encryption failure during a Steam upload.

According to multiple reports, including posts on the r/CrackWatch subreddit and the r/GamingLeaksAndRumours Reddit page, a developer uploaded Build 23118904 to Steam's backend on May 10 without encrypting the data. That's all it took. Users intercepted the files, cracked them, and had the game running independently of Steam or Game Pass within hours. Videos of gameplay started appearing on YouTube almost immediately.

The irony here is brutal. Microsoft's Premium Edition charges $100 for access starting May 15, a full $30 premium over the standard $70 price, specifically so buyers can play over the weekend before the general launch on May 19. That entire monetisation strategy just got undercut by someone forgetting to tick a box. FitGirl Repacks, a well-known repacker of cracked games, actually pushed back against the leak: "Legit users who paid for their game deserve to play it first. Not the pirates."

I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: artificially gating a finished game behind a $30 surcharge so richer players get a weekend head start is one of the worst trends in modern publishing. But this leak doesn't validate that practice or punish it. It just makes the whole thing look absurd. You're charging people thirty extra dollars for "early" access to a game that was already circulating for free. Neither Microsoft nor Playground Games has commented on the situation. The leaked version reportedly has stability issues and no functional online mode, but that hasn't stopped people from playing it. Reports also indicate the game has already sold around half a million copies on Steam alone in pre-orders, and it'll be available day one on Game Pass and eventually on PlayStation 5, so the financial damage is unlikely to be severe.

Forza Horizon 6 isn't the only high-profile game hit this week. Supermassive's Directive 8020 has also reportedly leaked just days before release. Between this and the string of Nintendo leaks earlier this year, 2026 is turning into a historically bad year for pre-release security.