Review: Gran Turismo 7

destructoid.com:

Back when Gran Turismo was one of the only simulation-heavy racing games, it was an institution: both at large and in my home. Gran Turismo 2 is one of my most-played games of all time, period, over my lifetime. But somewhere around the “Prologue” release of the fifth iteration, I started to get a little more distant. Instead of living in its world, I was merely a frequent tourist. Gran Turismo 7 changed that.

Gran Turismo 7 (PS4, PS5) Developer: Polyphony Digital Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment Released: March 4, 2022 MSRP: $59.99 (PS4), $69.99 (PS5)

One of the first things I noticed about Gran Turismo 7 is that its loading screens are littered with jazz and basketball facts. Historical facts, actually.

Polyphony Digital is really leaning into nostalgia this time around, and not just for the GT series, but nostalgia as a whole. And you know what? It works. The whole product, from top to bottom, feels like it has stuff packed in, so that something is always going on, even if you’re looking at brief text on-screen.

The second thing I noticed about the new entry is the visual style. I experienced the game on PS5, where it looks stunning and runs fantastically. A few screens looked like they were real, and GT7 along with the Forza series has brought in a hyper-realistic style that works super well for modern racers. While a lot of visual mediums suffer from it, it’s a boon for the genre, especially when the weather kicks in.

Since numbers often matter to racing fans, here are the cold hard stats as to what GT7 entails at launch:

Your main sense of progression is going to come from the hub, which facilitates café questlines (mostly involving completing objectives like a specific race to chase, or collecting a