Gran Turismo 7 Review: "The Best Pure Racing Game On Console"

Many of us will have fond memories of playing older Gran Turismo games, hurtling round iconic tracks like Laguna Seca and Tokyo Route 246. Despite me personally not playing a Gran Turismo game since Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, Gran Turismo 7 has brought those memories flooding back, because despite having an entirely new photorealistic coat of paint, this is the same Gran Turismo that fans of the series have played and loved for some time.

Gran Turismo has always prided itself on being "the real driving simulator", which is where it sets itself apart from the other established series on the market. GRID, Forza, Project CARS… all three titles are geared towards fun, frantic racing, but when it comes to Gran Turismo 7, there's a little more nuance to it than that.

Forza's Posh Older Brother

If you have the luxury of playing both Forza Horizon on Xbox or PC, and Gran Turismo on PlayStation, then the differences are immediately obvious. The former is loud and boisterous, like a summer frat party with beer kegs and dive bombs into swimming pools, whereas Gran Turismo is like a black tie event with a live jazz band and wait staff walking round serving appetisers. Both are incredibly appealing, but cater to vastly different crowds.

The fact Gran Turismo 7 begins with a lengthy montage detailing the history of motor racing, starting with the late 19th century, progressing through time until modern day, all while a classical piano number plays in the background, says it all. This is a game about appreciating the art of driving and marvelling at the beautifully rendered models, rather than just going as fast as you can.

A French Hatchback With A Side Of Sports Silencer, Please

Once you're past the fancy introduction, that wouldn't be out of place as an interactive museum exhibit, you're faced with what is essentially a series of tutorial races that gradually introduce all the various features. From the Tuning Shop to the World Circuit, the game may direct you there via the World Map, but this is far from the open-world game a lot of racing titles have become.

You'll spend as much time here, sifting through your constantly growing collection of cars, browsing the used and new car markets, and buying new parts for your various whips, as you will behind the wheel. A series of NPCs - just faces with unspoken lines of dialogue next to them - will introduce you to each area and explain what their purpose is in an attempt to add some character and personality to the game. Does it work? Not really, but it's easier to digest than having all the information thrown at you at once, and it rarely feels like there's too much to comprehend.

The Car Cafe is arguably the most important venue on the Sims-style map, because this is where you'll obtain "menus" from a bloke called Luca. Rather than being able to order from the menu however, these are checklists of cars you need to obtain or objectives to complete, before returning to the cafe and allowing Luca to detail the history of those cars. One menu might be a set of three Japanese FR cars from the 80s, while another may have three modern French hatchbacks from the last few years. Each car you need to obtain will be a reward for the next race you unlock though, so you know exactly where you need to go and which race to complete.

It gets repetitive after a while, doing the same cycle of visiting Luca, obtaining a new menu, completing a few short races, then heading back to the cafe, but there are plenty of races outside of this that you'll be unlocking too. Eventually, a vast array of tracks and championships across the globe will be opened up to you, and with the combination of online multiplayer, there's no shortage of content.

Learning To Drive

Gran Turismo 7 is more keen on teaching you actually how to drive, rather than just letting you loose with the fastest cars in the world. You'll start with one of three Japanese compact cars - a Demio XD, Honda Fit, or Toyota Aqua - and every race for the first few hours will be with cars of the same speed. You won't be breaking any world record lap times around Goodwood, because instead it'll be a grid full of vehicles from a Tesco car park.

One aspect which will no doubt push people away is the licence centre. In order to enter more championships and expand your collection of cars, you'll need to level up your driving licence, which is attained by completing a series of challenges. They start off simple - accelerate then brake and stop inside the designated zone within a certain time limit - but quickly become tougher, with sequential corners and faster cars to accomplish quicker times in.

Completing these tasks can get frustrating if you're struggling, but you thankfully only need to earn the bronze medal time for each one, which is usually quite generous in the time it allows. Thanks to the processing power behind the PS5 though, the loading times to attempt each one again are almost instantaneous, coming in at between 1-2 seconds. It allows you to keep hitting retry over and over until you get it right, without having your attention wander as you sit through loading screens.

After a while, the game starts opening up, and with your newfound driving knowledge in tow, you can tackle bigger and bolder races with faster, more expensive cars. By this point, the world (map) is your oyster, and you'll have a breadth of races to take on and vehicles to use. Missions also become available, which put you in various race situations with objectives to meet, like overtaking on a particularly narrow stretch of road or racing through Colorado in the dead of night driving a Jeep fit for safari.

A True Simulator

Gran Turismo 7 may pride itself on being as close to real life as it can be, but there are still a lot of toggles and assists to make the game approachable for newcomers or those who just want to pick up and play every now and then. Being behind the wheel of a car in Gran Turismo 7 is nothing short of delightful, and not because it's easy to breeze past the competition, but because each car feels weighty, one small mistake or late braking point will have you in the mud. Practising the same track or race until you nail each lap is encouraged, instead of blitzing through as quickly as possible.

It's also the best looking racing game we've ever seen, without a shadow of a doubt. Whether you have ray-tracing turned on or off, on a 4K display the fidelity of the vehicle interiors when driving behind the wheel, or the sheen of other cars with the sun bouncing off, is nothing short of impeccable. It reaches the point where realism becomes too much, because while hurtling round one particular sunny track in Italy, the windscreen was reflecting a small light on top of the dashboard, distracting me from the racing at hand, despite how technologically impressive it is.

A quick shout-out needs to go to the Music Rally mode as well, because playing that while the rest of the game was still downloading was the best introduction to Gran Turismo 7 I could've gotten. You're stuck behind the wheel of a classic car while a song plays, and the beats in the song count down on-screen. Hit the checkpoints and your time remaining will increase. It's a simple concept, but the choice of music - the first track being set to an assortment of classical tunes - means there's few other words to describe the mode other than epic. 

Setting The Pace

Plenty of other racing games are the equivalent of a big, greasy cheeseburger that tastes wonderful, but Gran Turismo 7 is like visiting a Michelin star restaurant, and they've deconstructed the same burger to become a beautifully presented, fancier meal. It's like the JRPG of racing games, wearing its Japanese development on its sleeve, which is something not often seen in the racing genre. In 2022, Gran Turismo 7 is one of the best racing games available, and undoubtedly the best for pure racing on consoles. 

5/5

Reviewed on PS5. Code provided by the publisher.