Forza Horizon 6 is clearly dominating the racing field this year, but Maverick Games, a studio formed by former Playground Games developers, may soon show the game it hopes will enter the same lane. Based on the countdown, Project Maverick is expected to be revealed on June 2, 2026, at 6:00 AM Eastern Time and 3:00 AM Pacific Time in the United States.

Forza Horizon 6’s dominance this year is hard to dispute. Playground Games’ title has amassed millions of players and holds a 95% positive review score on Steam, which has made it an easy candidate in many Game of the Year 2026 conversations. The open-world racing market is also not especially crowded right now: several studios focused on four-wheeled games have struggled or disappeared entirely in recent years. Even so, a direct challenger appears to be just days away, and it is not coming from nowhere. Project Maverick is being built by developers who previously helped shape the Forza Horizon series itself.

The position of Forza Horizon remains extremely strong thanks to its blend of technical spectacle, accessibility and a driving model that feels both approachable and highly polished. Still, criticism has increasingly focused on the lack of deeper change in the franchise’s formula. That sense of creative stagnation was also cited by some former studio figures as one of the internal limitations that pushed them to leave Playground Games. For that reason, Project Maverick is not just another new driving game. It looks like a direct response to the question of where the open-world racing formula can go after Forza Horizon.

Mike Brown Could Now Compete With the Series He Helped Build

One of the key names behind Maverick Games is Mike Brown, a major figure in the Forza Horizon series. He worked as a designer on three of the games and later directed Forza Horizon 5, before leaving Xbox and Playground Games in January 2023 because of creative differences. Brown did not leave racing games behind, however. He founded Maverick Games and brought several former colleagues with him, along with talent from Codemasters, the studio known for DiRT and GRID.

The first news around the project was not entirely reassuring, because Maverick Games later split from Amazon Game Studios, which stopped funding the title two years after its announcement. The British studio survived that setback, then secured a multi-million-dollar deal with Tencent, pushing its ambitions much higher. According to the studio’s earlier descriptions, Project Maverick will offer a massive open world, with a gameplay direction comparable to Forza Horizon, but mixing arcade and simulation elements.

The project has been teased more heavily in recent weeks. Maverick Games has shown images suggesting detailed car interiors, polished bodywork and a visual level that clearly points toward a premium racing production. According to Traxion, the live countdown on the studio’s YouTube feed points to June 2, 2026, at 11:00 AM BST, which matches 12:00 PM Spanish peninsular time. For the United States, that means June 2, 2026, at 6:00 AM Eastern Time and 3:00 AM Pacific Time.

The European and US Reveal Times

The expected reveal time therefore breaks down like this across the key regions:

• Hungarian time: June 2, 2026, at 12:00 PM.
• French time: June 2, 2026, at 12:00 PM.
• US Eastern Time: June 2, 2026, at 6:00 AM.
• US Pacific Time: June 2, 2026, at 3:00 AM.

The timing is also notable because the reveal lands in one of the busiest periods of the summer gaming calendar. With Sony’s State of Play, Summer Game Fest and the Xbox Games Showcase all clustered around the same period, attention will already be focused on major announcements. That gives Maverick Games a useful opening if it can arrive with a strong first trailer. The studio’s teasers have also hinted at a French Riviera setting, which would be especially interesting given Brown’s connection to Forza Horizon 2, a game that also leaned into a Mediterranean-style atmosphere.

Project Maverick still faces a major challenge. Forza Horizon 6 is not only strong within racing games, but also present in broader Game of the Year discussions, while Playground Games’ technical experience and brand recognition are difficult to attack directly. Maverick Games’ advantage may be that the team understands the Forza Horizon formula from the inside and may know exactly where it has grown too familiar. If Brown and his team can deliver a visually impressive, content-rich open-world driving game with a strong feel behind the wheel, Project Maverick could arrive not as a simple Forza clone, but as the next serious contender in the genre.

Source: 3DJuegos, Traxion, Maverick Games