Review Copy Provided by PlayStation.
Gran Turismo has long styled itself as the industry’s premier driving experience,
but it’s been a while since its presence has been fully felt.
After generations of ballooning content, Polyphony Digital
went back to the drawing board with GT Sport, which many perhaps overlooked
due to its multiplayer focus.
Now the full package has returned,
and even though Gran Turismo 7’s garage may not be as overflowing as past entries,
there’s a lot to dig into and an undeniable focus on excellence.
In terms of driving, technology, and performance, GT 7 is simply exquisite.
Responsive handling is clearly priority one,
supported by smooth framerates,
as well as audio and haptic design that communicates so much about your car.
If you get into another driver’s slipstream at high speed, you can hear the difference in the wind.
When raindrops start rattling on your roof,
it can evoke a sense of either cozy comfort or profound terror,
depending on which track you’re on,
and as the pavement starts to dry,
you can both see and feel the pronounced distinction in grip
between areas that are safe and those that are still damp.
The haptics in the DualSense controller
provide a satisfying thud when you shift gears
and they transmit the slide of your wheels as they start to lose grip.
However, most important is the unprecedented level of fidelity
gained from the resistant triggers, which allow you to adjust the throttle ever so slightly,
making a world of difference when cornering.
It’s the best driving on a controller to date,
and the more time you put into it, the more the quality stands out.
GT 7 is almost as nice to look at as it is to drive,
and you can find yourself getting lost just staring at cars in showrooms or watching replays.
The game offers a choice between ray tracing and performance modes,
but ray tracing is only used for replays and cut-scenes.
The result is that gameplay is never compromised
and you have two flavors of gorgeous visuals to gawk at when you need a break.
Ray tracing’s biggest advantage is shown off in reflections when looking at the car bodies themselves.
The lighting also looks particularly great as the time of day shifts during races,
with rays of sunlight filtering in or headlights cutting through the darkness after sundown.
Taking advantage of the visual package are the game’s complex photo modes, including Scapes
which allows you to place cars into 2500 different photographic backgrounds from around the world.
Adjusting nitty gritty camera settings, including masks and filters,
that can produce truly stunning results.
The emphasis on photography underlines Gran Turismo’s pervasive desire
to make players fall in love with cars.
Its Brand Central showcase not only allows you to purchase cars,
but serves as an automotive museum, full of historical footnotes
documenting each manufacturer with text entries, photographs,
old television commercials, and more.
The whole game is presented as a high brow, classy experience,
with much of its immense soundtrack focused on jazz,
lounge, and classical tunes.
Different elements like missions, multiplayer, and the upgrade shop,
are all accessed from a map-like interface that sets things in loose context.
Although at times, navigating the menus to find specific options
can be a little unintuitive and inconsistent.
At the center of it all is the café, which serves as your hub for the campaign.
Here, the café owner, Luca, presents you with a series of menu books,
which are essentially assignments for you to accomplish.
Many of these serve to introduce you to the game’s features one by one,
unlocking aspects such as tuning, car washes, and license tests as you go.
The majority of menu books, though, involve collecting specific sets of cars
that you gain from winning races, and once you complete a book,
a cut-scene plays as Luca explains the history and significance of those vehicles.
Depending on which car you’re currently driving,
other characters may also appear in the café to tell you more about that car,
even designers who actually worked on those vehicles in real life.
The café is a great concept that helps ease players into such a huge game,
but it is a bummer that everyone’s lines are only delivered via text
as it would be so much more warm and welcoming to hear Luca’s voice.
There’s a good sense of progression
as you learn to drive different classes of cars on different tracks,
but at the same time, the structure of campaign events can feel a bit one-note.
Campaign races feature rolling starts with all the cars in a long line,
and you have to work your way from last place to first, often in as little as two or three laps.
Pulling this off can still be fun and challenging,
but to do so, your car simply has to be capable of blasting by everyone in front of you.
None of the races in the main campaign start on a traditional grid,
even when GT 7 mixes in things like rally cars,
it doesn’t take the opportunity to introduce true rally races,
sticking to the same catch-the-leader template.
There are options to set up custom races with grid starts or endurance settings.
However, it would be nice if the campaign not only had more structural variety, but also featured
events that represent a more authentic race day experience,
with practice and qualifying sessions like the F1 games
or even GT 7’s own multiplayer Sport mode.
Later events are certainly more challenging,
and much of that satisfaction really comes down to mastering each track,
pushing your car to the edge of what it can take.
The track selection is very familiar to GT veterans, but with over 30 locations,
most with several variations, they don’t wear out their welcome.
Courses like Trial Mountain and the Tokyo Expressway
really come to life in their new upgraded forms.
GT 7 also encourages clean racing by increasing winnings by 50 percent.
This provides a strong incentive to avoid bumping into walls and other drivers,
pushing you to focus and be more precise.
As cars get faster, you have to concentrate on every moment and every nuance,
creating a thrill as you slip ahead of an opponent
or lift just off the gas to nail a corner.
Beyond the main race events and standard modes like time trials,
GT 7 offers more challenges in several forms.
The traditional license tests are great for learning the basics,
but getting gold times takes practice even for experienced drivers,
and it’s easy to find yourself screaming at the TV for missing gold by a fraction of a second.
Mission mode is an extension of this idea,
tasking you with goals like passing multiple cars in a short time frame
or slipstreaming to reach a certain speed,
and there are a lot of missions to unlock.
Then there’s the new Music Rally mode
which involves driving to a certain song and getting as far as you can before the song ends.
It sounds like a relaxing cruise at first,
but just like the license tests, getting gold can take some work.
While a first look at the tuning settings screen may make you want to run and hide,
tuning and upgrades do feel more accessible.
The parts shop does a decent job explaining what things do,
and tooltips describe the function of different parameters in your setup.
Even making simple changes like swapping tires and brakes
can make a clear difference, so it’s worth at least dabbling in the basics.
Plus, at GT Auto,
you can customize your car with aerodynamic parts,
rims, paint, and more.
While 424 vehicles is a far cry from GT’s peak car counts,
there’s a good selection here without feeling bloated,
including Minis, pick-up trucks, and the wild GT Vision concepts submitted by various manufacturers.
The trouble is that the ways you acquire cars
can make that number hard to realize.
There are three separate car shops.
Brand Central has new vehicles from 2001 forward.
Then there’s a used shop that has older cars,
but it only shows 15-20 vehicles at a time.
Then there’s a legendary shop with historical vehicles, but it similarly rotates stock.
You do get a lot of cars as rewards.
However, if you want a specific car, you need to keep an eye on the listings every day,
and some cars cost millions of credits, which can be hard to come by
with no way to sell unwanted vehicles to raise funds.
Enter the microtransactions.
Every time your in-game wallet pops up,
a little button prompts you to “top up on the PlayStation Store.”
It’s easy enough to disregard, but thanks to the shops’ “limited” stock,
there’s the suggestion that you might miss your chance.
At times, you also receive invitations to purchase high-end sports cars.
If you don’t have an invitation, you can’t buy the car,
and each invitation has an expiration date,
creating urgency to either grind it out or pony up the cash.
It feels entirely manipulative.
Another frustration is that GT 7 requires a constant online connection,
even for single player content.
If you lose connection to the service, you can only play a couple quick race modes
and you can’t save progress.
This is reportedly to address cheating,
but locking players out of the single player campaign seems heavy-handed and unnecessary,
particularly when compared to competing racing games.
So far, there haven’t been significant connection issues outside of planned maintenance,
but players with less reliable ISPs might not be so lucky.
It’s still early days for GT 7’s multiplayer Sport mode,
but what’s here is very similar to the previous release.
There are daily races with specific appointment times to join,
and you set a qualifying time to land your spot on the grid.
The biggest challenge for some races
is finding a car that meets the class restrictions
yet remains competitive,
as players quickly narrow in on tuning setups to maximize performance.
However, there are events that stick with stock parts as well.
It can be a shock to get out there after taking the podium in dozens of campaign events,
but once you adapt to the tight bounds of competition,
even gaining a few positions during a race can feel like an accomplishment.
There are also custom multiplayer lobbies if you want something casual
or just different from the day’s schedule.
Polyphony even included a local split screen option,
although it is quite limited,
only allowing you to choose from a small selection of cars.
Even if multiplayer isn’t for you, there’s a lot to do after rolling credits.
There are dozens of optional races to participate in, license tests to pass,
missions to complete,
and you’ll probably want to go back for some gold medals.
Plus, there’s more on the way.
Gran Turismo 7 certainly has its share of detriments and eccentricities,
some of which are bound to bother some players much more than others.
Yet, the parts that matter most are at the top of their class.
The café guides players through the campaign in a way that feels fresh and fits the GT culture,
the visuals can have you doing a double take,
and all of it is in support of phenomenal next-level driving.
Gran Turismo feels more welcoming and approachable than ever,
without sacrificing its identity.
Final score: 8.5 out of 10.
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Review Copy Provided by PlayStation.