Gran Turismo 7 review - A Michelin star feast for car aficionados — Too Much Gaming

It’s been a long time coming, but Polyphony Digital has finally delivered a new mainline entry in the Gran Turismo series - Gran Turismo 7. The racing sim's realistic gameplay and attention to detail remains stellar, as the meticulous reconstruction of every in-game car is enough to make any auto aficionado smile. But the more I played Gran Turismo 7, the more I felt like the developers were delivering something more than just car porn. What we have here is a love letter to the car industry as a whole. While I wasn’t too keen on certain features, this is a welcoming platform for curious would-be car enthusiasts, and veterans will appreciate the attention to detail.

Gran Turismo 7 is a complete package, but it doesn’t open up until you spend a good amount of time in the game’s new approach to career mode. Instead of going through the ranks doing races and unlocking new ones, your progression through GT7 is streamlined through what they call the Gran Turismo Cafe - a place where you are given certain tasks, like collecting specific cars, participating at races, or trying out one of the game’s game modes or features.

A school trip to a car museum

I find Gran Turismo Cafe a fantastic addition to the series, as it’s a proper guide to ease players into the game’s many highlights, while purposely putting them in the driver's seat of various car types. Most of the time, if it’s not introducing a new feature or championship event, the cafe gives you specific themed menus that task you with collecting specific cars, whether it's Ford Mustangs, or 4-wheel drive (4WD) vehicles. Once you collect the right cars for your menu, you are rewarded with a brief history lesson about those types of cars.

The downside is that the presentation could have been delivered in a more interesting and modern light. It’s just a simple slideshow with a few voiceless informative lines displayed on the screen as the game presents each of the cars you've collected at different angles, showcasing the game’s level of detail, from the interior to reflections in the headlights. If you struggle to stay engaged in school lectures, you might have a hard time here. The method used to present this information is dated, dull, and will test your patience depending on how open you are to learning about car culture in this manner.

The reward system is a bit off-putting, as completing some menus and other tasks will reward you with roulette tickets that give you 5 possible rewards. It pretty much works, well, like a roulette. A spotlight runs between each reward, and whatever it lands on will be your prize. I never liked designs like these, as the rewards are based on luck, and you’re sometimes left with a car part or a nitrous system for a car you don’t own yet, even in Championship races, where you get a car at random. This leaves some rewards feeling shallow, and players dissatisfied, as you have no control over the outcome.

At least the amount of credits you earn feels generous enough, as I never felt lacking in credits to tune my cars, or to get a specific one from either the Used Cars store or Brand Central. However, I did sense that some grinding will be needed later down the line, if you’re eager to own the most expensive cars in the game.

A racing simulator first and foremost

When you hit the road, it’s business as usual for a Gran Turismo game. The realism of Gran Turismo 7’s car physics are some of the best I've ever experienced. It’s ruthless on the road, as you’ll be hitting dirt in most cases if you don’t approach a corner at the right angle, or brake just enough to give you the right curve to exit a turn.

The day and night cycle kicks in during certain races, changing visibility mid-way through the race. Weather changes happen as well, since rain can come and go, but leave lasting effects that require you to approach turns differently on your next pass. These elements felt great, providing good twists to keep a player on their toes.

Gran Turismo 7 eases the player in by introducing more complicated tracks slowly, especially when you’ve completed a few license exams that teach you how to approach different track layouts. With that, the game has a reasonable difficulty curve, and thanks to the right visual aids and Gran Turismo Cafe leading the way, this is the most approachable GT game to newcomers, whether in the series, or of car racing in general.

AI in the game varies depending on the difficulty you choose, but they play out similar to previous GT titles, as the top 3 cars are usually the tough ones to beat, while the others are just obstacles you need to avoid hitting. This never changes in every race, making this more about your understanding of the track and the car you’re using than outsmarting the AI competition.

This is slightly alleviated as you can have a more random experience in Multiplayer, which features Gran Turismo Sport’s daily races - scheduled races will have players register to compete with other players with a similar skill and driving etiquette. I tried it a couple of times during the review process, and I had a blast with it, as I love how unpredictable a race can be with multiple players. Lag wasn’t an issue for me, thankfully, but once the game fully launches, you may need to wait and see how well it's implemented.

The game also features a multiplayer lobby system where players can make rooms to create specific races for players to join. Sadly, I couldn’t test this as much as I would like, as not that many people were playing during the review period. Gran Turismo 7 also features a basic 2-player split-screen race mode - a nice reminder that there was once a time where this was the only form of multiplayer during the earlier iterations of the franchise.

It’s all in the detail

When a race ends, you are given the opportunity to watch the replay of the whole race, which is mostly where I take in how photorealistic this game can look like when the cars are in motion. The detail in the cars and even the track itself is an example of how far the video game industry has come in delivering realistic visuals. This level of detail remained constant in all types of cars from the vintage to the most exquisite types, complete with their distinct interior look. One car didn’t seem lower in quality than any other.

On the PS5 there’s performance mode if you’re a sucker like me who likes things running at 60 fps, or ray tracing mode, which fully utilizes the rendering feature more extensively. And since this mode is capped at 30 fps, it delivers sharper visual detail. Considering how good the game looks, I leaned more towards ray tracing mode this time around, but either works just as effectively, with close to no technical issues, bugs, or crashes.

Gran Turismo 7 checks all of the boxes of what would be expected from a palatable Gran Turismo game. It features an extensive photo mode, a community sharing space called Showcase, mission challenges, and a fun arcade-like game mode called Music Rally. It’s a solid package with over 400 cars and an extensive list of tracks, though it was disappointing to know that almost all of the game’s features will only be available when you’re online. If you’re not connected to the internet, you can only do simple races against AI that don't contribute to your career at all. Even offline deactivates the local 2-player split screen for multiplayer.

Gran Turismo 7 is a great racing sim with some questionable design choices weighing it down, but it also has good ones like the addition of Gran Turismo Cafe, though the history presentations would benefit from a modern approach. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant surprise that will help out newcomers, making this title an easy recommendation to those eager to explore the world of Gran Turismo.