Gran Turismo Sport has been given a launch date, it’s had its beta cancelled, and some of its details have been made known by Polyphony Digital – let’s look under the hood!
Recently revealed in London, Gran Turismo Sport will be the next installment in Polyphony Digital’s assured and successful racing simulator. A completely separate beast to the upcoming Gran Turismo 7, Sport will act as an ‘off the main path’ series entry that still comes packed with some meaty content.
Franchise boss Kazunori Yamauchi has detailed the game’s content in conjunction with a playable offering at the London reveal event. The game runs in 60FPS – though it reportedly still suffers from frame rate issues at this stage – it will display in 1080P (what else for a series such as this), and it will feature weather effects and real-world damage modelling – though both of these features were also absent from the game at the reveal. The weather in the game, which though variable will not be dynamic, will be an option to be selected in the menus before races – which actually offers a nice element of self-imposed challenge (Nürburgring in heavy rain, yes please). There will be 130 cars available – a fraction of what’s been available for series main entries – there will be online play, alongside the single player, which presumably includes the usual assortment of modes present in other series entries.
Yamauchi was also very apologetic in reference to the recently cancelled beta of the game: “In order to do a beta test we have to make a gold master of the beta test code, and for us it actually takes as much effort as to finish the real master code of the actual game.” It makes perfect sense to spend development time on releasing the game properly, though of course this does go back on their previous plan to have a beta for 2016, as they announced last year.
Gran Turismo Sport has a release date set for November 15th in North America, Asia, and Japan; In Europe it will be released three days later on the 18th. When the game ships, there will be various options for excited petrol heads. The Collector’s Edition costs $69.99 and comes with eight cars, $1 million in-game credits, a livery sticker pack, 30 themed avatars, a racing helmet for your driver profile, and a steel book case to house it all. Furthermore, everyone who pre-orders GT Sport gets early access to a three-car pack that includes a, Toyota FT-1 Vision GT Group 3, a Peugeot 908 HDi FAP LMP1, and a Ford Mustang Group B Rally Car.
Pre-ordering the game from GameStop will net you two early Access Bonus Cars: a Chevrolet Corvette Group 3, and a Nissan NISMO GT-R GT3 N24. It is also possible to pre-order the game directly from the PlayStation store, and this will modestly provide GT Themed PS4 Avatars, GT Sport Dynamic Theme, and $500,000 In-Game Credits.
This will mark the series’ first entry on the PS4, and hopefully will celebrate this in elegant style upon release…
