UPDATED: Gran Turismo 7 Rumors and News
UPDATE 6/11: Sony announced Gran Turismo 7, officially confirming it would come to PS5. They also released an official trailer, linked below. They did not confirm a specific release date.
It’s been nearly 3 years since we’ve seen a Gran Turismo release. With the expected release of the Playstation 5 later this year, its natural there is speculation of when we’ll see the next installment in this series.
While Sony themselves have been relatively mum about when we’ll see it, the internet is full of rumors and misinformation. So we’ve read dozens of sites for you and pieced together what we feel is the most accurate information available. We will also recap a little of Gran Turismo’s history.
Gran Turismo 7 Features
While the rumor mills have primarily focused on things that could be assumed to this point, check back as we learn more. I’d expect as we get closer to a real announcement there will be updates on new tracks and cars.
Driving Modes/Physics
Reality/Likelihood: High
Expect to see driving modes and physics continue to diverge. Gran Turismo has always had great physics. However, there continues to be an interest in car racing games to either be hyper realistic or hyper entertaining. Forza has ultimately created two games for this divide.
While there isn’t many rumors to suggest Gran Turismo is headed down this path, I do expect there will continue to be a divergence of game play modes within the game in Gran Turismo.
8K Support
Reality/Likelihood: Low
Lots of rumors around this started because Sony recently released their line of 8K TVs. As part of the demo of that they showed Gran Turismo playing in 8K. This fueled not just rumors of potential 8K support in the PS5 but also that Gran Turismo was being teased because it was close to be launched.
While this makes for a juicy rumor there may be some alternative explanations. First, PS5 isn’t expected to support 8K, even if it could. There simply isn’t enough demand for a wholly niche concept. So if PS5 doesn’t support it there is no way GT7 would.
Second, it’s likely Sony used Gran Turismo as the footage because they could. There simply isn’t much in the way of 8K content. It likely was easy to have the Gran Turismo team render some 8K footage to show off 8K content. Also, strategically as a business it made more sense to promote one of their games than some movie they may have laying around, or a third parties content. With few core, on brand 8K sources this was much more likely a ‘best of what was available for the brand’ than an indication we’ll see 8K support at all in this generation of games or hardware.
Virtual Reality
Reality/Likelihood: Moderate
A common rumor is that GT7 will support Sony’s second version of VR. While this seems likely given Sony’s planned investment and GT7 being a flagship title, there isn’t yet anything other than assumption around this.
It Won’t Be Gran Turismo 7 At All
Reality/Likelihood: Low to Moderate
There are a few rumors that Sony won’t release a full blown update to Gran Turismo at all, but will rather make PS5 support an iteration of Gran Turismo Sport. The idea being they can release an updated Gran Turismo sport with new content and PS5 support. It would be faster.
While this is certainly a possibility, it seems unlikely. For a flagship title and with a new console, it would seem more likely Sony would like the larger revenue they’d get from new title sales.
UPDATE: The trailer confirms it will be called Gran Turismo 7.
Gran Turismo 7 Launch Date
While there is no official lauch date for Gran Turismo 7 there are plenty of rumors. The most popular one is that it will be a launch title for Playstation 5. While this is exciting, we’ve done some research and one thing we’ve discovered is that Gran Turismo has never been a launch title for any Playstation.
Also, many of the rumors around the Gran Turismo 7 launch date came from an accidental inclusion of the GT7 logo in an instagram post by a professional racing simulator wheel company.
The problem with this rumor is while it may confirm GT7 is happening, and even far enough into development to have a logo and be in the hands of hardware companies, there was nothing about the post that indicated a release date. The post even included other not yet released games (at the time) such as Dirt 5 which isn’t due to be released until October. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the “accident” was intentional and intended to help generate buzz for the company.
We’ll update this post when there is more. COVID-19 delayed Sony’s 2020 press event, originally scheduled for early June. So it is possible if Gran Turismo 7 is going to be a 2020 release, we’ll hear about it when this gets rescheduled.
For now, it’s pretty safe to assume that it will be a Holiday 2021 release then if it doesn’t come out this year given the last 3 releases all were holiday/4th quarter releases. Prior to that most Japanese releases were in Q4 with American releases following in March/Late Q1.
UPDATE: While a 2020 or 2021 release was not confirmed, the announcement now in June more likely implies it will be a 2020 release.
Gran Turismo History
For those who are not entirely familiar with Gran Turismo for car enthusiasts, its a unique one. While fans of Forza will remember its original release on the XBox in the US, many car enthusiasts original experiences with Gran Turismo was different.
The original game was like no other racing sim. You didn’t just get to drive the cars, you could mod them. Exhausts, wheels, intakes, engine components, even turbo kits. The original Gran Turismo quickly became a cult sensation with car enthusiasts.
The problem for car enthusiasts in the US is that Gran Turismo wasn’t available for the American playstation. So many enthusiasts resorted to importing the Japanese version of the came. With most of the writing in Kanji it was sometimes difficult to understand what was happening. But given the visual interface of the game it was playable. And absolutely glorious.
In addition the Japanese version included Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) cars that were not available in the US. This added to the lore in the late 90s when Japanese cars seemingly ruled the car enthusiast scene.
While ultimately North America got a full English version a year later, the fact it started with a cult following and had radically different game play left everyone hooked. Gran Turismo would be the premiere enthusiast racing game for nearly 15 years.
While there is some argument in recent years that Forza has done a better job of capturing the magic of being a car enthusiast, there will never be a game in our hearts like the original Gran Turismo. For many people it propelled us from casual fans of cars to full blown enthusiats.
Not surprising the latest reditiion of Gran Turismo – Gran Turismo Sport (effectively Gran Turiusmo 6) landed on our Best Driving Games for Car Enthusiasts list.
