This was just a beautiful coincidence as I just landed back from Japan after 2 weeks there this very week, and of course, I visited Hakone and Tokyo among others, so if they nail the locations, I can confirm this is simply the best map yet in a Horizon game hands down.
And among the many things I have questions about...there is a small detail I wonder about. Starting with FH2, they got a bit 'lazy' regarding the traffic cars, FH1 had unplayable but real cars that made sense as traffic in Colorado, and since then, the Fiesta-Bora-Legacy fest has been a bit boring to see, I really hope they let those rest for good and build an actual traffic set for this game, as it's simply part of the whole experience, it's a vibe of its own when you look around, and the default traffic won't cut it at all, especially when you consider that not only those cars are not representative at all of the traffic in Japan in any period, but now it's even worse, since as we know cars older then 5 years are 'rare' to some extent, due to the shaken inspections among other factors (Oldest Prius I spotted were all 3rd gens), and now those traffic cars are 15-20 years old. (In fact, I spotted more Ferraris than Fords...just one. Again, in 2 weeks. A Fiesta funnily enough)
If I had to choose 10 cars for traffic, based on my observations, they would be as follow:
-Toyota JPN Taxi and/or Crown Confort Taxi depending on the area
-Toyota Sienta
-Nissan Note 3rd Gen
-Toyota Prius 5th Gen
-Daihatsu Move Canbus
-Nissan NV100 Clipper
-Toyota Voxy/Alphard
-Daihatsu Taft
-Mitsubishi Delica
-Toyota Probox
-Suzuki Hustler
And...that was 11 in fact. Or 13 if you count both taxis and Toyota vans, even with that of course a bunch of quite seen cars are left out, but I think these ones give a good representation of the traffic, having a bit of everything (And I didn't add the Isuzu/Hino buses, trucks...). But again, this for me at least is a crucial detail I really want to see, I don't expect them to nail them or even get close to a list like that...but as far as they move away from the FH2-FH5 traffic we're definitely moving forward.
EDIT: It would be lovely to also be able to have realistic license plates to some degree, I get they are trying a creative approach and/or maybe they want to avoid legal issues in any way, but again, Japanese plates are quite iconic so I hope they don't try something too fictional here (but anyway, I'm expecting something like the one in the teaser...)
EDIT 2: In the traffic list, I still need to add the Toyota HiAce, the most common van by far...really hard to stick to just 10 cars. The Nissan AD is also quite a common sight.
I know you said it'd probably end up as a traffic car, but... I can't see it not being playable in some form. I just can't.
