FH6 Festival Unlock Order — Best Path for New Players
You get to choose which festival site to unlock next. Choose wrong, and you'll spend the next 10 hours without the one feature you actually need.
The FH6 campaign lets you expand the Horizon Festival one site at a time. Each new festival outpost unlocks specific event types, PR stunts, and features. The order you pick matters — a lot. Unlock the wrong site first and you'll be staring at drift zones you can't complete with a garage full of grip-tuned road cars. Unlock in the right order and everything flows naturally.
Here's the optimal path, why it works, and what to do if your playstyle is different from mine.
Recommended Unlock Order (General Purpose)
This is the sequence I use on every new save file, and I've started fresh four times now testing different routes. This order maximizes your access to credits, fast travel, and event variety without ever leaving you stuck.
Step 1: Horizon Festival Mexico (Main Hub) — Automatic
This unlocks automatically after the intro sequence. You get access to road racing, street racing, and the basic festival playlist. Nothing to decide here — the game gives it to you. Use this phase to build up about 100,000 credits, grab the essential free cars, and get comfortable with the map.
Step 2: Horizon Wilds (Dirt Racing Outpost) — 10,000 Accolade Points
This should be your first manual unlock. Wilds gives you dirt racing, cross-country events, and trailblazers (PR stunts where you drive through a gate as fast as possible). The reason I pick this first: dirt and cross-country events are everywhere on the map, and they're the easiest events to win early. The AI is noticeably worse on loose surfaces than on pavement. You'll rack up credits fast. Trailblazers also spit out wheelspins like candy — each one has a target time and beating it usually nets you a wheelspin on top of the regular reward.
Step 3: Horizon Street Scene (Night Racing Outpost) — 25,000 Accolade Points
Street Scene unlocks night street races, drift zones, and speed traps. A lot of people pick this first because they want to drift. Don't. Street races pay less than dirt events at low difficulty and the AI trades paint way more aggressively at night. The reason to unlock it second is drift zones — by now you have enough credits to buy a dedicated drift car (Nissan Silvia S15, about 25,000 CR), and drift zones are the fastest way to farm skill points sprint car mastery perks.
Step 4: Horizon Apex (Road Racing Expansion) — 50,000 Accolade Points
Apex unlocks speed zones, danger signs (jumps), and high-level road racing championships. At this point your garage should have a solid A-class or S1 road car, and you're ready for serious pavement competition. Speed zones are the best PR stunt for testing your car's limits, and danger signs are the most fun way to earn wheelspins — there's something deeply satisfying about launching a car 500 meters off a ramp.
Step 5: Horizon Baja (Cross-Country Expansion) — 80,000 Accolade Points
Baja adds the gnarliest cross-country routes, the longest jumps, and the most chaotic races in FH6. By this point you should have an off-road vehicle that you actually enjoy driving (Ford Raptor, Jeep Trailcat, or similar). The Baja events are the highest-paying non-Goliath races in the game because they're long — 8-12 minutes each — and the CR/minute ratio is excellent.
Step 6: Horizon Rush (PR Stunt Central) — 120,000 Accolade Points
Rush unlocks everything you've been missing: speed cameras, drift zones in new areas, showcase events (those cinematic races against trains and planes), and the final story chapters. Rush also gives you access to the Eliminator mode. Save this for last because showcase events are one-and-done spectacles — they're fun but they don't help you build credits or skill points efficiently.
What Each Festival Gives You (Quick Reference)
Here's the raw data if you want to make your own decision. I've bolded the stuff that actually matters for progression.
Horizon Festival Mexico (Main)
Road Racing, Street Racing, Festival Playlist, basic Autoshow access, first house purchase option
Unlocks: Auto
Horizon Wilds
Dirt Racing, Cross-Country, Trailblazers, Rally tires upgrade, first off-road vehicle discounts
Unlocks: 10,000 Accolade Points
Horizon Street Scene
Night Street Racing, Drift Zones, Speed Traps, Midnight Battle events, neon visual customization parts
Unlocks: 25,000 Accolade Points
Horizon Apex
Speed Zones, Danger Signs, Advanced Road Racing, track day events, circuit championships
Unlocks: 50,000 Accolade Points
Horizon Baja
Extreme Cross-Country, Long Jumps, Desert racing championships, Trophy Truck events
Unlocks: 80,000 Accolade Points
Horizon Rush
Speed Cameras, Showcase Events, The Eliminator, Story chapters (final), Photo mode advanced filters
Unlocks: 120,000 Accolade Points
Best Path for Racers (Road-Focused)
If you're a pure road racer — you don't care about dirt, you just want to race fast cars on asphalt — here's the alternate route:
Mexico → Apex → Street Scene → Wilds → Baja → Rush
Unlocking Apex second gets you speed zones and danger signs immediately. Speed zones are the best tool for learning car control on pavement — they force you to maintain speed through corners instead of just mashing the throttle on straights. Danger signs give you a break from racing and the wheelspin payouts are generous. Skip Wilds until you absolutely need it. Some story progression gates require all outposts, so you will need to unlock everything eventually, but racers can delay the dirt-focused sites by 20+ hours without losing anything.
Best Path for Drifters
If you bought FH6 specifically to slide sideways through corners (I respect this), here's your path:
Mexico → Street Scene → Wilds → Apex → Baja → Rush
Street Scene first because drift zones. No debate. The second you unlock Street Scene, every drift zone on the map becomes active and you can start farming skill points. Buy the Nissan Silvia S15 or the Formula Drift Corvette (DLC), throw on drift suspension and tires, and you're in business. Wilds second because dirt drifting is a different beast and the loose-surface drift zones are some of the most fun in the game. Apex third for the mountain pass speed zones — those are basically drift zones with consequences.
Best Path for Completionists
If you want to 100% the game in the shortest possible time:
Mexico → Wilds → Apex → Street Scene → Baja → Rush
Wilds and Apex first because PR stunts are your bottleneck for completion. Trailblazers, speed zones, and danger signs are all over the map, and you need all of them active to 3-star every PR stunt efficiently. Street Scene third because drift zones are the last major PR category. The Eliminator and showcase events from Rush can wait — they don't contribute to the campaign completion percentage.
How to Earn Accolade Points Fast
Accolade points are the currency for unlocking festival sites. Here's where they come from and how to get them quickly:
Story chapters give the biggest payouts — sometimes 5,000-10,000 points for a completed chapter. Do these as soon as they unlock. Each character's storyline (Lucha de Carreteras, Vocho, etc.) has multiple chapters and they're actually fun.
PR stunts give accolade points for reaching 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star targets. Even if you can only hit 1-star, take it. Every star is accolade progress. Don't wait until you have the perfect car — come back for the higher stars later.
Speed cameras and drift zones are repeatable accolade farms. Each time you beat your personal best, you get accolade points for the improvement. If you barely hit 1-star on a speed camera, that's free accolade progression every time you drive through it naturally with a faster car.
Skill chains have accolade categories. Stuff like "earn 100,000 skill score in one chain" or "bank 1,000,000 total skill score" are passive bonuses that happen just from driving around.
Photo mode has the easiest accolades. Take a photo of your car at each festival site, at each beauty spot, at sunrise, at sunset, in the rain. Each one is 500-1,000 points for pressing one button.
Between story chapters and PR stunts, you should hit the 120,000 accolade requirement for all six sites within 15-20 hours of gameplay if you're not rushing. If you're optimizing, you can do it in under 10.