On Sunday, Forza Horizon 6 made its way into the hands of gamers, but it wasn't because developer Playground Games decided to release the game early. No. Rather, an unencrypted version of the game was uploaded to Steam, and pirates quickly pounced on it, cracking the game and releasing its files online.
The end result was players accessing Forza Horizon 6 well ahead of its scheduled May 19 release date. Cracks are nothing new in the piracy community, but pre-release cracks are incredibly rare and also detrimental to developers.
Now, Playground Games is taking a stand against those who accessed their upcoming title.
Specifically, the developer acknowledged that a build of Forza Horizon 6 has gone live. It is also taking strict action against those who play the game, "including franchise-wide and hardware bans."
"We encourage fans to sit tight for the game’s release on May 19," the developer concluded.
The statement follows a user who reported that they were banned for thousands of years after accessing the game. It's unclear what exactly led to their ban, but Forza Horizon 6 does require a Microsoft account to access.
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