I enjoyed Gran Turismo 1-3 but then dropped out. It became very repetitive. Graphical improvements, but basically the same cars, the same races, the same tracks and whatnot. Once again, it doesn't seem like much has changed apart from resolution and performance. They said they have been taking the best features from all the previous GT games, so I'll have to see what kinds of things are included. I don't remember which GT it was where you could look at adverts for old, used cars and buy them. There were some really old, rare and shady cars that you could customize and play around with, that was a fun feature on top of all the new and shiny cars.

GT Sport had a lot of car porn as well, checking out the Jaguar XJ13 in VR

These special classics were 20 million credits though (and can't be purchased with real money). The reward for grinding to max credits. Or if you got really lucky you could get them in the daily workout spin.

GT5 has the used car dealer shop, GT Sport only had safety car versions you could get with mileage points with different selections over time.

GT Sport actually did have some excellent new original tracks like Dragon Trail: Seaside an Kyoto driving park, as well as new real world additions that never featured in GT before. The main complaint about the track list was not having more of the previous tracks in GT Sport!

GT Sport started fresh, new engine, new assets made for native 4K and HDR (rec.2020, up to 10K nits) so it was already designed for PS5. TVs that can display all that GT Sport has to offer still don't exist. Which at least means that all cars and tracks can easily move over and be displayed at higher lod on ps5. A pro (more tracks/cars at release) and a con (a lot of exact same content). But it allows GT7 to release 'early' for a change.

It will be fun to play the rpg lite campaign again, which was missing in GT Sport. But I hope PD also improves the online sport mode and maybe add dynamic time/weather later, at least for the Nurburgring, Sarthe and Spa. I love doing endurance races with real time weather there. One of the most fun races I did was a multi-class endurance race (lobby organized) at night

Those 3.5 hours were over in a flash, managing fuel used and tires, planning pit stops ahead, overtaking lower class cars along the way. Doing this with real time and dynamic weather and many more cars on track is my dream race. (Add VR and you'll never see me again lol) Maybe one day.

^ Damn, that looks way worse than anything from GT Sport. It looks like the only thing changed from the PS3 version is the resolution...

The trees on the Nordschleife at least got upgraded to be a bit more lifelike


And rain was already pretty well visualized, although not dynamic


Too bad PD stopped upgrading more tracks with rain and snow tires were never used in the game.

I am not excited for either GT7 or FM8. Honestly Sim racers don't do it for me. After playing the Horizon games, i honestly couldn't go back to the Sim games.

This game probably has the best lighting I have seen in a game. The ambient lighting, ray tracing, reflections, shadows, track detail, accuracy of day and night time. This is a big step up from gt sport, and obviously running on ps5 not ps4. In my opinion this is a step up from even horizon 5.

Settle down

It already was that way on PS4, and best HDR I've seen in any game. The night lighting in HDR is unmatched and day time looks great as well with the skies and contrast while going through tunnels.

However it was all baked lighting, reflections, shadows on PS4. Using shadow lines as brake markers, that's not very realistic! I was hoping for more real time lighting, maybe some real time ray tracing on ps5 instead of more static light maps. But static maps still provide better visuals than dynamic lighting, and PD is always chasing after the best look.

With more variation (more static maps) and short races static lighting and weather isn't much of an issue. The silly 10 minute day/night cycle you could set in GT5 and DriveClub was not immersive at all, and for any 10 minute race in real time, you would not see the light change anyway. In Forza Horizon 4 I also felt disconnected with the accelerated time as with most games with day/night cycles. Night is more of a nuisance than exciting. MGS2 had a great feeling of time progression with its baked in cycle, set to story progression. That felt immersive. Same as now in FS2020 with real time and weather, very immersive. Yet of course in flight sims flights can take many hours, race games are more a bunch of quick rounds.

But what about endurance races, will they be back in GT7, and will you be able to race into the night. Plus why not have real time for sport races, the time and weather accurately reflecting the time and weather at the location of the track. There is still a long way to go before race sims are 'finished'. Accurate seasons is next.

Anyway, it seems PD is focusing on weather atm, maybe just static presets for now, yet all that experience will make it easier to switch to a dynamic version later. FS2020's live weather is good but not on the level of what PD is trying to do. Aerosol density, visibility, haze, smog are all missing from FS2020, as well as cumulonimbus clouds and others. It looks very nice, but still misses so much compared to looking at the sky outside. FS2020 has presets as well, and they still outshine live weather in many ways.

The battle between dynamic and (static) presets continue!

It just recently surfaced that GT7 campaign mode will require an online connection to play. Not exactly great news.

https://gamerant.com/gran-turismo-7-single-player-campaign-internet-connection/

I'm getting it day one. Didn't do the same for sport because it wasn't a real GT game to me.

Hmm, I wonder if GT Sport will get offline saves patched in at EoL, or if it becomes a 'dud' after the servers turn off :/

Mandatory online connection to stop meaningless cheating with save files. For what reason.