Gran Turismo was the biggest thing in the past. If you went to a video game store around the beginning of the new millennium, you undoubtedly have fond memories of pausing to watch a Nissan GTR, the ultimate PlayStation 2 machine, slithering through a rain-soaked Special Stage 5 demo run as its headlights shone brightly through the puddles. Gran Turismo was the uncontested driving game monarch for a brief period of time.
Sony’s flagship driving series has seen several changes since its peak in the early 2000s, but it has never quite attained the same level of popularity. Gran Turismo 6 is a flabby, unfocused game that takes players from the Goodwood hillclimb to the moon. Gran Turismo 5 was an ungainly, lumbering, and never quite convincing trudge into the HD age. Its expanse was exhilarating, yet the innumerable jagged edges that might be discovered between were frequently annoying.
The inevitable next move for developer Polyphony Digital after that lumpy excess was to take everything apart and start again, which it accomplished with elegant determination in Gran Turismo Sport of 2017. This was the first Gran Turismo game that focused more on racing than driving, bringing iRacing’s methodical setup and style into the living room. As a result, the series has been incredibly popular and is backed by competitive, well-run racing and one of the liveliest virtual racing communities.
I apologize for the trite history lesson, but Gran Turismo 7 places a lot of importance on history. This is essentially a full-fledged celebration of 25 years of Polyphony Digital’s franchise, bringing back legendary tracks like Trial Mountain and Deep Forest along with a 20-hour single-player campaign and customizable cars. These references are so abundant that at times it feels like you’re playing a grandiose Gran Turismo 2 remake a la Demon’s Souls, except with all the color and vibrancy of the late 90s glory turned back on.
But it’s much more than just Polyphony Digital’s 25th birthday celebration. The intense nostalgia here has a pointendess, and it’s a play for everyone who was put off by the show’s more erroneous turns later in its run. As a consequence, we have the most approachable, unrestricted, and simply delightful Gran Turismo yet—in my opinion, Gran Turismo has never been more refined or focused.
Fortunately, none of these takes away from the quirkiness and charm of the series, which are fundamental to Gran Turismo 7. The campaign is framed by a world map, from which you can visit a roster of circuits that are gradually unlocked (and a fairly generous roster at that, with Gran Turismo Sport’s tracklist bolstered by returning fantasy tracks as well as the likes of Daytona), shop for new and used cars, add a few extra horsepower to your ride, or participate in side missions or license tests.
But the café sits in the center of it all. There, you’ll run across Jeremy, with his sly smile that pierces your cheeks and is always prepared with a few facts about the automobile you’ve just acquired, and you’ll meet old auto fanatic Chris, who is always eager to check out whatever vehicle you’re in. Tom Matano, the man behind the original Mazda MX5, was telling me the other day about a wedding in Texas where the bride and groom were joined in marriage by their shared love of his legendary roadster.
Gran Turismo: the visual novel may be the most unexpected of all the numerous paths Polyphony Digital has taken the franchise in over the years. Perhaps even more unexpected is how brilliantly Gran Turismo 7 handles it, lending its campaign a unique personality of its own. In the same café, you’ll also run into the friendly-looking Luca, who hands you menu books with tasks like getting specific licenses, winning specific races, or, most of the time, amassing specific automobiles. When you bring them back, one of the rarely-visited designers will likely give you a little history lesson or perhaps some insight.
It lends warmth and a solid core to Gran Turismo 7’s campaign, despite its tendency to be unduly prescriptive. The main campaign follows a narrow path, and you only get a little more freedom later on when you learn about the joys of customizing a vehicle. That being said, customizing typically consists of bolting on as many extras as you can until you reach the Performance Points cap for the race you’re going for.
Gran Turismo has always allowed for customization, but now that it’s back, it’s handled quite differently. Gran Turismo has historically drawn influence from the real world of racing, but this time the strategy looks more closer to the real-life performance balance that keeps sportscar fields clustered together, with the eventual lap time calculated and taken into consideration. To put it succinctly, it’s more simulation-based, which also means that your tweaks will yield more noticeable benefits. As a result, you’ll feel the advantage of those carbon brake discs you installed to counterbalance the turbo that’s driving you crazy fast. Though it’s never nearly as flexible as Forza and offers less options overall, it’s still pretty focused and the things that are included have a purpose.
Money is scarce early on in your Gran Turismo trip, so you’re forced to notice it. The campaign has a certain thrifty quality that initially works in its favor by making you thoughtfully examine every new improvement and make sure you enjoy every new automobile you save up for. Because of how meticulously every detail is rendered in Gran Turismo 7, each car seems like a standalone event. The fabrics and plastics in the cockpit are remade with the perfect amount of shine, and the genuineness of the material is also palpable.
I’m a modest man with nothing more in my drive than a broken-down Toyota, so I have no idea how realistic it is to the actual thing. However, what truly strikes me about Gran Turismo 7 is how each car seems true to the genuine thing’s character without ever veering into caricature. The level of detail in the light cluster model, the engine note, and the handling qualities are all examples of the care and attention that has gone into each one. That is to say, nothing feels quite as good as blasting around Goodwood at 240 mph in a pukka prototype. That’s why you should definitely throw a Mini Cooper about. Gran Turismo 7’s rendition of the mk3 Supra flawlessly captures the lolling boatiness of the vehicle, so even my beat-up old Toyota gets its due.
Gran Turismo 7 benefits greatly from a few minor upgrades, such as a dynamic cockpit camera that eliminates the sterility of the past and makes every physical feature appealing to the user. In addition to the DualSense controller on the PlayStation 5, which allows you to feel springs compress under weight when you lean into a turn and gives each car’s brake pedal a unique feel, from the hefty punt necessary for a race car to the unnervingly gentle touch of steel brakes. As a result of this, each new automobile you get seems like a unique occasion.
You’ve been given a satisfying tour through Gran Turismo’s history and maybe even learned a few things about cars along the way. By the time the credits roll, after a thrilling race that’s one of countless nods to the series’ history and that may have given me a little lump in my throat, you’ve been treated to a satisfying experience. Gran Turismo’s passion for the car, conveyed via all of its meticulous detail and its numerous bizarre outbursts, might be so contagious that you could have fallen in love with them.
There are also some enjoyable surprises in store if you’re returning to Gran Turismo after a break. Similar to Gran Turismo 7, which still has all the advantages of Sport, including the same daily races and focused, enjoyable racing, its multiplayer mode is the greatest in its class on consoles. For example, it now has one of the easiest to use livery editors available, allowing you to easily make your own or use community-generated artwork in what is essentially an integrated trading paint system.
Like how, thanks to significant enhancements made to Gran Turismo 7, automobiles no longer sound like irate vacuum cleaners, and how, in my opinion—and I still find it hard to believe—this is one of the most amazing audio driving experiences available. Gran Turismo 7 is still fairly reserved when it comes to engine growls and aggression, but what really stands out is the fidelity, which is best conveyed through 3D audio. For example, you can hear the gentle patter of rain falling on a rooftop while driving the Tokyo Expressway, or, for those of you who enjoy ASMR, the gentle tinkle of a loose dashboard.
Gran Turismo 7’s open-armed yet realistic handling, camera that leans in with you, DualSense feedback system, and the straightforward craftsmanship that goes into each car make for an incredible driving experience. Not to mention how ridiculously beautiful it all looks, which has caused me to spend just as much time taking photos as logging kilometers. With the razzamatazz of the first-party exclusive, this is Gran Turismo as spectacular as it has ever been. It also features raytracing, which I have never really appreciated before but is available in the replay and photo modes, where I spend a lot of time immersing the cars in their surroundings.
Though it should be noted with some care that this is still a Gran Turismo game. Damage is almost nonexistent, and the range of cars still feels small and antiquated (maybe I’m just bitter that my favorite Lotus hasn’t made the cut, but there are plenty of Toyotas to console me, even though I don’t understand why the Le Mans winning vehicle from that marque isn’t in the game). It features many of the same absurdities and frustrations, the most egregious of which is undoubtedly the microtransactions that can be used to buy in-game items. This is problematic since, in Gran Turismo 7, the grind is the entire game once you’ve rolled credits.
A few of the new features are a letdown; for example, Music Rally, the only option available on the main menu other than the World Map, which houses every other Gran Turismo 7 activity, is a clumsy take on a classic checkpoint race set to music that at least showcases Polyphony Digital’s quirkiness; similarly, the Music Replay feature, which syncs replays to music, is adorable but unimportant. Similarly, the newly implemented weather effects are excellent, although they are only available on 10 songs and lack some of the realism that was first suggested. And how I would have dearly for B-Spec to be back.
Though certain unfulfilled promises and absent features seem to be part of the contemporary Gran Turismo experience that fans have come to anticipate, this seems like the first Gran Turismo in a long time that is deserving of being a modern blockbuster, with appeal that extends well beyond cultish car enthusiasts like me. It is an opulent, strikingly beautiful object that, above all, manages to keep its enthusiast’s heart beneath the graphical display and tries its utmost to turn anybody inside its orbit become a vehicle fanatic. Is it once more the driving game king? Gran Turismo, which offers approachable driving that looks really stunning, fits neatly with titles like Assetto Corsa and iRacing, but the genre is now too wide and varied to make such a statement. Is this Gran Turismo the greatest one yet? There’s no actual question about it.