Interview with an NPC: The Journey of Larry Chen to Forza Horizon 6

      Forza Horizon 6

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      I haven’t had the chance to try out Forza Horizon 6 yet, and chances are you haven’t either. It’s not set to be released until May 19, and only a select few—like my friend Adam—have received early copies for review purposes (check out our review here). During our conversation about the game, Adam mentioned a mission that felt surprisingly familiar. A wave of nostalgia washed over me, and then it struck me: it's reminiscent of my favorite side quests from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, but featuring cars.

      In Forza Horizon 6, automotive photographer Larry Chen appears multiple times. He’s a character who assigns you driving missions so he can capture stunning images of amazing cars in iconic spots across Japan. In one task called “Shutter Speed,” you need to accelerate to 90 mph in a Mugen-tuned Honda CRX while driving on a bridge near the Daikoku Parking Area. The goal is to create motion shots for a fictional car magazine.

      That's Larry Chen, dressed in his typical Canon shirt, a ball cap, and a gaiter.

      If you played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 obsessively like I did, this might sound familiar. That game also had missions where you worked with celebrated skate photographer Atiba Jefferson, who has contributed to publications like Transworld and Thrasher. He would ask you to perform tricks so he could capture incredible images of flips and grinds in legendary locations like Alcatraz. Do you see where I’m going with this?

      I was instantly intrigued. It had to be intentional! Someone at Forza must know about this! Then I thought, “I’ll just ask Larry.”

      So that’s exactly what I did. I reached out to Larry Chen, mentioning that my question was quite niche and possibly obscure. His reply was as fantastic as I had hoped.

      “I absolutely love this question because I’m actually really good friends with Atiba Jefferson," Chen shared in an email. "We’re both Canon Explorers of Light. I’m the only automotive and motorsports photographer in the group, and he’s the skate photographer, so it was pretty natural for us to become close over the years through Canon events and camera launches. We even got inducted into this exclusive group on the same day.”

      “I’m well aware of his role in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, and when I mentioned I would be in Forza Horizon 6, he shared a bunch of stories about his experiences working on Tony Hawk.”

      See! I knew there had to be a connection!

      “The funniest story was that he recorded all of his voice lines for the game, but the studio ultimately decided that his actual voice didn’t suit the character, so they replaced all his lines with a voice actor,” Chen recalled. This detail is somewhat known, and they even discuss it in Vice’s great documentary on Jefferson. “Obviously that’s unfortunate,” Chen added, “but over the years it’s turned into one of those funny stories we laugh about together.”

      “It’s honestly pretty cool that both of us sort of experienced a similar coming-of-age moment in our respective fields. Him through skate culture and Tony Hawk, and me through car culture and Forza. The Canon connection makes us the perfect duo, I guess, haha.”

      Chen remarked that being a character in a video game was a “pinch me moment.”

      “I was surrounded by all these Canon cameras while they scanned my body, my face, even my teeth. It felt so surreal. To become a character in Forza Horizon 6, which could very well be the largest and most significant car racing game of our generation, is something I never thought I would experience as a child.”

      Personally, I doubt I’ll ever become a character in Forza Horizon (or the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, for that matter). But stranger things have happened. I’m not ready to give up hope just yet.

      Have a tip or question for the author? Reach out directly at caleb@thedrive.com.