Gran Turismo 7: Can Polyphony Digital Reclaim Racing Sim King of the Hill?

written by Ade Putra

It’s taken seven years for Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo 7 to roll out the garage. Announced during Sony’s Future of Gaming event, the racing sim will take full advantage of PS5 advancements such as ray tracing and 3D audio to heighten immersion. However, will that be enough for it to overtake Forza and other rising competitors on the next-gen racing circuit?

Make no mistake: It has a lot of catching up to do. Gran Turismo’s sole release on PS4 was the highly divisive Gran Turismo Sport, an online-focused game that drastically cut its car-and-track lineup in exchange for FIA-certified racing. That is a huge deal, for it strengthens GT’s mark in real and virtual motorsports. Yet GT Sport estranged long-time fans who saw the series as an opportunity to test-drive nearly everything the world had to offer — from everyday sedans to exotic supercars and, of course, the Vision GT concept models.

Complicating matters is how quickly others have acted in GT’s absence. Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport had three positively-reviewed launches on the Xbox One, and they’ve made significant headway in attracting new fans through two Forza Horizon games. Elsewhere, new entrants like Project CARS and Assetto Corsa have confidently secured a place in the sim-racing scene.

There’s reason to be excited

All that said, we could see Gran Turismo 7 launching to the top. GT Sport saw meaningful improvements in performance as well as audio-visual quality — particularly the lighting, car model interiors, and especially car engine sounds. And let’s not forget the groundwork laid in online infrastructure, with a regular cycle of official championships.

So, Gran Turismo 7 will not only build upon that but also bring back features we’ve missed from the earlier games. We know there’s a traditional campaign mode at launch, and the main menu screen (GT Town) from the trailer confirmed tuning, maintenance, and the used car dealership. Other series mainstays such as the driving school and Scapes (photo mode) are there as well, but they’re joined by new ones like GT Café and GT Sport Live which, presumably, relates to their World Tour events.

On that point, the cars now seem to use both grades (N) and performance points (PP) in their rating systems, which should help in filtering eligible race cars. While there’s no official car count so far, we see no reason to expect anything less than GT Sport’s current stable of 300+ rides. A brief appearance by the BAC Mono at the 43-second mark suggests there’ll be new cars at launch, too.

The trailer also made a point of showing Trial Mountain, a beloved fictional track that was absent from GT Sport. Unsurprisingly, it has seen some changes so we can probably expect more tweaked originals moving forward, whether at launch or through DLC. Again, while there are no figures on the number of tracks available, it’ll likely have a wider selection than GT Sport.

Finally, fans of community-made liveries will be glad to see that Discover is back. While Polyphony hasn’t mentioned if they’ll support it, we’d love to see all our PS4 creations carrying over. Similarly, Sony has stated that “officially licensed racing wheels” for PS4 will work on PS5 games, though it’s best to get confirmation from the developers.

What else we’d love to see

It’s still early days for Gran Turismo 7 so plenty of details are still up in the air. However, a key feature that could set the game apart is virtual reality — series creator Kazunori Yamauchi told GTPlanet how much he liked VR and how it was “very suited for a driving game.” Given the beefier specs on the PS5, perhaps we’d see better VR integration than GT Sport.

A track editor would also fare high on fans’ wish lists, considering how much creative control was given in 2013’s GT6. That iteration used a smartphone app, whereas GT Sport’s livery editor had users going through a website. We wouldn’t be surprised if GT7 supported both.

Then there’s dynamic weather and the day-time cycle, features culled from GT Sport to maintain its 60FPS gameplay. While it was the right move performance-wise, it made for a blander racing experience — who wants to run a 24-hour race in perpetually sunny, 7 a.m. conditions?

Yet the biggest question right now is: When does it launch? Gran Turismo is notorious for taking its time, but Sony is no doubt keen to push GT7 into PS5’s launch slate. After all, it checks all the right boxes: ray-tracing, SSD loading, 3D audio, haptic feedback, potential PSVR support, and loads of future DLC. While there’s still plenty of mystery behind Sony’s plans right now, we hope to see Gran Turismo 7 landing in 2021.