Gran Turismo 7 Preview: Gameplay, DualSense and Content

Gran Turismo 7 is the first main game in the Gran Turismo series, celebrating its 25th anniversary, to launch on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Setting aside Gran Turismo Sport, released earlier for PlayStation 4, the last main-series Gran Turismo release was in December 2013, on PlayStation 3. In this article you can find answers to questions such as how Gran Turismo 7, arriving after about 8.5 years and a whole console generation, turned out, what awaits us, whether players who do not know much about simulation can play it, and how well the DualSense is used.

Gran Turismo 7 Preview

A Next-Generation Racing Simulation

Gran Turismo 7 is the latest game in a series that set out 25 years ago with the goal of offering the most realistic driving experience on PlayStation consoles. Our journey, which began on the PlayStation 1 with about 140 cars on a limited number of tracks, now offers the chance to compete in different conditions on many tracks built using the power of the PlayStation 5, with more than 400 car models. There are 424 cars we can collect in the game. The number of track variations we can race them on exceeds 90. You may think this number is lower than in Gran Turismo 6, and that is right. Gran Turismo 6 came with more than a thousand car options, but there too there was a situation with Premium cars and standard cars that were copy-pasted from the previous PS2 game. We should not forget that GT Sport, the only Gran Turismo game released for PlayStation 4 so far, launched with only 162 cars.

After the opening film, the game greets us with Music Rally for a small warm-up lap. Music Rally mode is first of all a mode for warming up beginners and for those who want to ignore strict rules and enjoy driving to the music. It is a lot of fun: the time progresses according to the rhythm of the music playing, and the goal is not to pass the other racers but to stay on the track until the song ends and cover the greatest distance. There are 6 songs available for now, but more are said to be coming in the future.

Music Rally is a nice option for warming up and having some fun, but the real beauty of the game lies in the real races. The game has different options where we can compete while experiencing realistic driving. The Café is our first stop: it presents us with various menus and asks us to complete them, and it is also where conversations take place in which we learn various information about cars. After learning our goal there, we can enter World Circuits and Missions to race on our own, and try to pass the exams given at the License Center to raise our driving skills and update our license. For online games there are Multiplayer and Sport sections.

We receive various cars as gifts after the results of some races or when we complete missions, but buying cars is essential to expand our collection. There are different places we can go when we want to buy a car. Brand Central, where we can buy new cars, Used Cars, where we can find old models that are no longer in production, and Legend Cars, which holds a limited number of special cars in its changing catalog, are the shops we will visit. In the beginning, Used Cars is our best friend.

We can examine the cars we collect in the Garage area and make adjustments with the parts we own. It is also possible to capture very nice scenes in the Scapes Movies section. We stop by the Tuning Shop, where we can renew almost all the parts of a car and increase its performance, before almost every race. In GT Auto, where we can make visual changes to the car and carry out maintenance such as washing and oil changes, it is also possible to make changes to our driver's helmet and race suit.

Finally, our main menu has Showcase and Scapes. Showcase is the area where we can see in-game content, the collectibles we own and media. Scapes is a fantastic photo mode that lets us take photos with our cars in various places around the world.

The Chance to Race All Around the World

With Gran Turismo 7, we get the chance to take part in special races and championships held in Europe, America and Asia-Oceania. Among the tracks we compete on are real tracks like the Nürburgring, as well as variations of tracks created specifically for the game such as Trial Mountain and the Tokyo Expressway, with more than ninety options in all.

Some features that were simplified a bit with Gran Turismo Sport, which can be considered a side game, have returned in a more advanced form with Gran Turismo 7. Features such as taking our worn car after races and changing its oil or having it washed nicely have returned. It is possible to modify each car separately and improve their performance by adding various features. With advanced fine-tuning options, there is a chance to adjust power ratings and make cars suitable for races at certain PP levels. We can make adjustments that affect the physics of the car, such as the width, the height and how the wings affect airflow.

The DualSense, one of the strongest points of the PlayStation 5 console, really manages to involve you in the races in Gran Turismo 7. With adaptive triggers and haptic feedback, you feel as if you have really taken the driver's seat. It is a great experience to have the triggers respond differently to braking and turns in different cars, and to feel directly the turns the car makes and the surface it is on through haptic feedback. When one side of the car goes off the track, you can tell even without seeing it, and you instantly feel the condition of the track and your car's reaction to the road with a sudden rain.

If you are not very experienced in car racing, the driving assists the game offers are very helpful. By turning on assists such as steering control, brake assist and the racing line, the help you get in controlling the car also keeps you from constantly losing races while you learn the game.

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