Why I'm Not Excited for Gran Turismo 7

[Signalstar]

So Gran Turismo 7 finally had its release date revealed yesterday. It is coming out on March 4, 2022. Compared to the PSP, PS3, and PS4 lifecycles this is a relatively early debut for GT on the new generation. I am a big fan of GT. GT Sport is my most played PS4 game at more than 80 hours of playtime. Yet for some reason I just can't get hyped for GT7 and there are a few reasons why.

1) There is nothing new or exciting about it. Even going through the press release I struggle to find any new features or gameplay modes to look forward to. They seem to be stressing the return of the GT campaign mode after singleplayer took a backseat to online play in GT Sport. But GT Sport had a ton of offline single player race events to play through. I'm sure GT7's will be better organized and more comprehensive, but it really is not that big of a change. Also why so much emphasis on the Photo mode? I enjoyed it in GT Sport but it's not the most thrilling gameplay experience.

2) The graphics don't impress me. I know we are doomed by diminishing returns but I honestly don't see much of a step up in terms of visual presentation. Even though all of the footage shown so far has been of the PS5 version, they show a lot of replays and pre-rendered visuals rather than direct gameplay. Even the gameplay footage is not that impressive. Maybe its time to change up the visual aesthetic because it all looks so plain, sterile, and artificial.

3) It's cross gen with PS4. Yeah, I can't get hyped knowing they had to make sure this game ran on PS4 hardware as well. It honestly makes the GT6 on PS3 debacle even more confusing, if anything that game should have been cross gen because the PS4 was not backwards compatible and therefore incapable of playing GT 6. Will online feature cross gen play? How much will the loading times differ? Does the pixel count for cars differ between both versions? So maybe GT8 at the end of the gen will be fully PS5 exclusive, maybe it will feature PSVR 2 support as well.

I'm sure the game will be fine and I will get it on PS5 eventually, but this isn't shaping up to be the triumphant return to glory that I was hoping it would be.