Gran Turismo Sport | Gridding Soon

The Moment We’ve Been Waiting For Has Arrived

Avid racing game fans are guaranteed to know what Gran Turismo is. This is the franchise which started many of the millennials journeys into console racing games. Perhaps even racing games in general. If you’ve ever owned a PlayStation then you’ve more than likely come across and played a Gran Turismo title before. It’s been a few years now since the release of Gran Turismo 6 which didn’t necessarily prove to be all that popular among fans. But now PlayStation’s favorite racing franchise have finally released some small but important details of their latest installment and semi-successor to Gran Turismo 6. GT Sport has been teased for the past year with very little detail being given away. It’s time for us to delve into the details and provide some insight on what’s to come from this new installment in the GT Franchise.

Issues Plaguing The Exclusive Event In London

The details of GT Sport were unveiled at an exclusive event held in London. Members of the worlds most popular Gran Turismo forum GTplanet had mixed reactions to the event. Particularly with regards to the audio issues. Particularly with regards to the lack of communication between the Broadcast Director and his seemingly ignorant Cameramen. The broadcast overlays were also filled with errors. This confused the commentators and announcers more often than not. To put it into perspective, this broadcast doesn’t even hold a candle compared to the absolute professionalism we’re used to within the sim racing scene from the likes of Racespot TV for example.

It Wasn’t All Bad

Or was it? The game experienced some glitches during the event. After all of the hype for this title and the event. This is obviously not something which Polyphony will just let slide, and we’ll expect these issues to be ironed out come release day. We do accept though, that the game is still in pre-release phase and that this is not a true reflection of what the final product will be like.

FIA Involvement

The FIA announced their partnership with Polyphony and the Gran Turismo franchise a while ago already. They are aiming to promote sim racing as an esport with officially sanctioned races and championships using the Gran Turismo Sport platform. This is great for sim racing, and has a lot of potential to boost the sport if it’s done right. However, the FIA’s involvement during the launch event seemed almost pointless. The live stewards didn’t seem to be very active, and their decisions (if any) weren’t communicated with the broadcast team. There was also no real explanation of the roles that the FIA would be fulfilling throughout the event.

There were very few shots and no interviews with any of the FIA representatives. It seems as though the FIA representatives were placed at the event solely to fulfill a brand representation role. In other words, it seems from an outside perspective that they were there just so that the FIA could say that they were involved.

We certainly hope that this isn’t a peek into what the future holds with regards to the partnership and the FIA’s role in promoting the budding sport of sim racing. We’d like to see more involvement and more insight into the role of the FIA, and what it is they’re doing exactly to ensure that the partnership with the GT franchise is fruitful for not only themselves, but also for sim racing as a whole.

About The Game

The game itself is interesting. It looks partly like a semi-upgraded GT6 for the PS4, and partly like a serious racing simulation platform. The most interesting revelation is that there will be no standard-cars in the game. At least not for the initial release. This is done on purpose to ensure that this title is seen as a racing-only title and not as your casual driving game. There will be 19 tracks in the game upon initial release. The dreaded Nordschleife, the short but technical Brands Hatch, and the popular Gran Turismo track Tokyo Expressway are among some of the circuits on the list.

We must say that looking through some of the images provided by Polyphony, this game really does look beautiful. Incredibly beautiful in fact. Trust Polyphony to come out with truly next-gen photo-realistic graphics right? If you don’t believe us, just have a look at the images in the gallery featured on Gamespot for reference.

More information on the game will be released in the coming days. We’re waiting with eager eyes and ears to see what else is in store for Gran Turismo fans with this new title.

What’s your view? Is this going to be a re-hash attempt at a more racy GT6? Or will this be the racing sim we’ve been waiting for on the Playstation? Let us know in the comments down below.