recently, citing reports from multiple media outlets, microsoft’s open-world racing game “forza horizon 6” has experienced a steam pre-load file leak. because the uploaded files were not encrypted, some players appear to have already been able to access an early version of the game through cracking methods.
“forza horizon 6” was originally scheduled to launch its deluxe edition in early access on may 15 and the standard edition on may 19. in other words, this leak occurred more than a week before the official release date. under normal circumstances, game pre-load files are encrypted and can only be decrypted for play at the time of release. it’s easy to infer that this incident resulted from an operational error by certain developers, who inadvertently uploaded an unencrypted version of the 155gb game to the server.
notably, this is not the first major game to suffer a steam pre-load leak in 2026. back in march, “death stranding 2” also experienced a nearly identical pre-load mishap, making “forza horizon 6” the second large-scale game to encounter such a leak this year.
as of now, neither the game developer playground games nor microsoft has issued any response regarding this leak.
