Forza Horizon 6 leaked in full on Steam nine days before launch
Playground Games accidentally uploaded 155GB of unencrypted Forza Horizon 6 files to Steam on May 10, making the full game playable nine days before its official May 19 release. The files spread quickly to torrent sites and piracy platforms after the error was spotted. For anyone who pre-ordered at £49.99 or more, it's a frustrating reminder that build security is still a weak link in big-budget game publishing.
The leak
The unencrypted Steam depot gave pirates everything they needed to crack and run the game locally, according to Insider Gaming. The leaked build circulated on CrackWatch and similar sites within hours. Notably, Forza Horizon 6 ships without Denuvo anti-tamper protection, which meant there was no secondary barrier once the files were accessible.
The one saving grace for Microsoft: online features are blocked server-side. Multiplayer, seasonal events, and live-service content all require authentication that the leaked build can't pass, as Inven Global confirms. That limits the damage — Forza Horizon's online modes are a core part of the experience, and pirates get a stripped-down version at best.
What it means if you paid
If you pre-ordered, nothing about your purchase changes. Premium Edition buyers still get early access from May 15, and the full release lands May 19 on PC and Xbox Series X/S. Forza Horizon 6 is also a Day One Game Pass title, which now looks like an even stronger option given the chaos around pre-orders. A PS5 version is planned for later in 2026.
Microsoft and Playground Games have not issued a public statement on the incident at time of writing.
A pattern worth watching
This is not an isolated case. Death Stranding 2 suffered a similar 113GB Steam leak in March 2026, per COGconnected. Two major unencrypted preload failures inside three months points to a systemic problem in how studios manage build uploads to digital storefronts — not a one-off mistake. Until publishers enforce encrypted depots as a hard requirement, pre-release leaks of this scale will keep happening.