Gran Turismo 7 Will Be More Like Classic GT Titles, Says Kazunori Yamauchi

[RaceSpirit86]

Interesting to read how Kaz has recalled GT's 1-4 for a solid career mode rather than the recent PS3 instalments. GT4 was the gold standard and the trailer for GT7 clearly shows PD taking inspiration from it.

Yeah, an inspiration but the background menu is bland in that trailer!

Soon.

That made me giggle! Who knew Kaz was a fancy dancer like that!

 

[Dave A]

Your problem of racing against mobile chicane is an AI problem instead of career problem (though you do list the others), but that one doesn't impact only the career but also anything else in the game... PD had hiring spree which includes AI job but dunno.

I dislike the single file rolling starts that were introduced in GT4, that was one of the things GT has got wrong in recent iterations. I much prefer a grid start either standing or rolling. But either way, the AI does need to improve so races become more interesting and not chase the rabbit affairs. Hopefully with the projects they've done on AI PD can provide us with stronger AI in GT7.

Well, B-Spec already had a tiny aspect of team, with race management since GT4 and the driver management/hire on GT5. Probably use B-Spec as a whole team management mode, adding more than those 2 already done in the franchise. Other than teammate also want the game to allow B-Spec driver to enter a race by itself without the need to spectate, while the player can do something else.

I'd like to see this, I always felt B-Spec could be expanded on into more of a team management side of the game where you hire drivers and pit crews etc. An interesting idea could be team based events where each team enters two drivers and cars, you could either race these events co-op with a friend or using a B-Spec driver as the second car. You get driver points as usual, but also points for how well the team has done combined. Then at the end of the series not only does the winning driver get thier rewards, the winning team gets a bonus and prize too. There are plenty of opportunities to expand this area.

GT already had a sense of progression from slower categories right? With Sunday Cup being just the name of one of the slowest events. National and International are the name of the Licenses lol, GT had freedom of progressing from slower to faster with license or just completing all the licenses at once to be a sandbox where you can enter any event (though GT6 restricts for the former). Though yeah driver rank is different thing.

GT5 had a bit of step in right direction for offroad with GT Rally, which are sprint stages, though iirc it was still wide. Manufacturer events affecting that brand is also something I wanna see (which nowadays is lumped with usual events since GT5 like Vitz Race), they should contribute to that manufacturer yeah, like brand loyalty and bonuses like discounts.

I thoiught GT5 had a lot of potential in the rally stages and certain features, the locked content behind your level was not one of those, that rightfully went, but the genereated stages had tonnes of potential, they were just a bit simplistic and short in a lot of cases. But that could have been improved and tweaked with time and development.

Sometimes memes can get treated as a truth yeah, like GT Auto being all about car wash and oil change (for derogatory uses, treating GT Auto as just useless and not worth returning other than nostalgia). But overall yeah, in reality GT Auto becomes the place for car service (oil change and also the car maintenance) and car modification (color change, rim change, aero kits, and soon to be livery editor).

GT Auto has always been useful, it was introduced in GT3 and featurd the oil change which had a tangiable benefit on your cars performance when it needed the change. Before GT3 there was only a Car Wash feature, then from GT3 onward that was incorporated into GT Auto which has grown over time to include bodywork changes, engine overhauls etc. I hope they put all of that back in, the maintennence side of the game contributes to hte feling of ownership of your cars.

 

[JTB10000]

I don't mind the starting slow and working your way up layout. The option for every race to be a challenge instead of having to progress through most of the career mode to get the A.I. at its fastest would be great and with the times. I know Kaz has said his team doesn't pay attention to what other games do but they would really benefit from looking at what people like about those games that GT isn't doing.

 

[o000o]

I dislike the single file rolling starts that were introduced in GT4, that was one of the things GT has got wrong in recent iterations. I much prefer a grid start either standing or rolling. But either way, the AI does need to improve so races become more interesting and not chase the rabbit affairs. Hopefully with the projects they've done on AI PD can provide us with stronger AI in GT7.

I'd like to see this, I always felt B-Spec could be expanded on into more of a team management side of the game where you hire drivers and pit crews etc. An interesting idea could be team based events where each team enters two drivers and cars, you could either race these events co-op with a friend or using a B-Spec driver as the second car. You get driver points as usual, but also points for how well the team has done combined. Then at the end of the series not only does the winning driver get thier rewards, the winning team gets a bonus and prize too. There are plenty of opportunities to expand this area.

I thoiught GT5 had a lot of potential in the rally stages and certain features, the locked content behind your level was not one of those, that rightfully went, but the genereated stages had tonnes of potential, they were just a bit simplistic and short in a lot of cases. But that could have been improved and tweaked with time and development.

GT Auto has always been useful, it was introduced in GT3 and featurd the oil change which had a tangiable benefit on your cars performance when it needed the change. Before GT3 there was only a Car Wash feature, then from GT3 onward that was incorporated into GT Auto which has grown over time to include bodywork changes, engine overhauls etc. I hope they put all of that back in, the maintennence side of the game contributes to hte feling of ownership of your cars.

They don't want to improve the AI, so they resort to removing qualifying and giving focus to rolling start to make it more challenging instead of facing the problem!

Team race for B-Spec has been suggested several times, but I also wanna them to be used for completing events faster by sending several drivers to multiple events (1 driver each) at once.

Well they don't implement level lock again since GT6 so they seem to learn they lesson (albeit GT6 has stars...). Which other feature for GT5?

 

[Jowsif]

The two things I hope happen are:

1) We get a proper GT4-esque career mode, with all the races and championships, licence tests, milestones etc... which by the looks of it is what we are getting.

2) They keep (and improve) everything that was great about GT Sport: The structured online races with safety and driver rating + penalties, FIA championships, daily mileage rewards, the livery editor, etc.

On a slightly lesser extent, I’d love to see more classic tracks return (Grindlewald, Tokyo R246...) and I hope they continue to add content like tracks and cars like they did in Sport, as the game progresses.

I’m so hyped for GT7, and after flirting with Forza for a few years it’s nice to be coming home

 

[SnakeOfBacon]

If GT7 is to be more like 1-4 than 5, 6 and Sport, I think that's fantastic news and exactly what I'm looking for, if it means what I think it does.
The campaign structure of GT1-4 has a few leagues with a wide variety of events to do in any order, as well as manufacturer series(es) and special events. GT5 had outstanding special events, outshining the much less diverse leagues, and also had a balance problem of having very small prize money offline, doubled if you signed in every day, and seasonal events that payed immensely more than anything else, making it very slow to play and not worth coming back to after 2014. GT6 had a very accessible campaign that anybody could finish... in a quarter of the time one would expect for the series, unfortunately, and the system of collecting stars just had a certain... Angry Birds quality that rubbed me the wrong way. GT6 also had no race longer than 24 minutes, and while a real 24 hour A-spec race is a tremendous ordeal, 1-4 hours is just right.

 

[Cayit]

People are wondering if GT7 would also come out for PS4, NO it will not.
I read it somewhere that GT7 will be out ONLY on PS5.
So, don't talk ******** guys...

 

[Imari]

People are wondering if GT7 would also come out for PS4, NO it will not.
I read it somewhere that GT7 will be out ONLY on PS5.
So, don't talk ******** guys...

There's no reason for GT7 to come out on PS4. Its purpose is to sell PS5s. Which is probably why it's not out yet, you can't sell what ain't there.

 

[Samus]

People are wondering if GT7 would also come out for PS4, NO it will not.
I read it somewhere that GT7 will be out ONLY on PS5.
So, don't talk ******** guys...

Well if you read it somewhere it must be true.

 

[Dave A]

You can read that it's only listed for PS5 on playstation.com, that's pretty credible to me.

 

[Samus]

You can read that it's only listed for PS5 on playstation.com, that's pretty credible to me.

I know, I was just joking about "read it somewhere", as if that totally clears it up.

I still don't think it will have a PS4 version but AFAIK nobody from Sony or PD have straight up said "PS5 only", correct me if I'm wrong. As you say there is currently only a PS5 icon on the official site but that doesn't strictly negate a PS4 version, a PS4 logo can easily be added if/when they announce such a thing. Again, not that I think they will.

 

[Tornado]

I suppose there really is no way of convincing you otherwise. The fact of the matter is, GT4's AI was from a game released in 2004. GT Sport's was from a game released in 2017. I would take GT4's sporadic (but fast) AI, over GT Sports mannered (but slow) AI, any day of the week if it means not being in 1st place by over a mile, in the same cars as the competition. I prefer to be raced, not be handled with kids gloves by the AI because the game assumes I have never touched a racing game in my life.

Keep in mind, I never claimed GT4's AI was the best (The original Automobilista on PC has that award imo). My argument is, that GT Sport's AI took one step forward by making the AI drive cleaner, but two steps back by somehow making the AI much slower than what we had 15 years ago.

Even by the standards of 2004, GT4's AI was some of the worst in the genre. There was virtually no recognition of the player car, some races you were guaranteed to win if the AI entered cars it couldn't drive (which, due to GT4's physics, usually meant a field of FWD cars), and you could watch lap after lap after lap of the AI making exactly the same mistake at exactly the same corner (fast flowing turns in particular were virtually impossible for the AI to navigate in fast cars without downforce) since actual handling characteristics of the cats the AI were driving were ignored. GT4's AI was a substantial step back in performance from that of previous games, and in previous games they had rubber banding.




The reason GT Sport's AI is "somehow much slower" was because cars in events in GT4 were almost always artificially inflated in power versus stock (frequently beyond the level the player could make their car, in fact) and that so many races used the obnoxious tiered rolling starts combined with short races to make the player start the race in a 10+ second hole with a spread out field that they had to overcome in just a few laps.
I can't attest to how bad GT Sport's AI is, since the extent of my experience with it is people on this forum shouting me down about how great it looked in prerelease trailers; but PD had already created drastically better AI for GT5. It reacted to the player and other drivers, the mistakes made were usually from overdriving the car and poor overtaking attempts, and it actually drove laps that weren't functionally identical for the entire race. The pace wasn't entirely there, but it was close for novice drivers. And while they watered it down drastically in GT5 (with them mostly getting rid of standing starts a few months after GT5 released and frequently poor AI car selection) and completely destroyed it for GT6 (by making the races even more deliberately chase the rabbit, and having the AI actively slow down to let you catch up), GT5 is the baseline standard for what they should shoot for. Not GT4.

 

[strela]

The more I think about it the more confused I am. I genuinely don't understand what GT1 and GT4 have in common that you can't find in GT5 or 6. And after stressing myself to this point I can only see one thing. The layout of the main menu. You know the icons on a city map. And of course GT7 have a similar layout. So it will be more similar to GT1-4 than 5-Sport, I guess. But.... is it really such a big difference?
Ok there are some other things like Ferrari, Lamborghini and some other companies that are missing in old titles, but we know he didn't meant that. Well I won't know what exactly did he meant anyway until the game comes out... let's just hope it's something substantial.

 

[Tornado]

GT1-4 were significantly more open-ended games than GT5/6; though I suspect the actual reason he said GT7 would be like GT1-4 was because they were well received (and have nostalgia factoring for them now on top of that) and he wants people to think that GT7 will be more like them than GT5/6.

 

[strela]

Look we all know (ok, those who played it) that GT1 despite being a great game for that period it really pales when compared to GT2. 11 tracks and 20 or so events it's really not that much. But yeah it sold 11 million copies. A huge seller... I also suspect he just wants to count on that nostalgia factor.

 

[o000o]

If GT7 is to be more like 1-4 than 5, 6 and Sport, I think that's fantastic news and exactly what I'm looking for, if it means what I think it does.
The campaign structure of GT1-4 has a few leagues with a wide variety of events to do in any order, as well as manufacturer series(es) and special events. GT5 had outstanding special events, outshining the much less diverse leagues, and also had a balance problem of having very small prize money offline, doubled if you signed in every day, and seasonal events that payed immensely more than anything else, making it very slow to play and not worth coming back to after 2014. GT6 had a very accessible campaign that anybody could finish... in a quarter of the time one would expect for the series, unfortunately, and the system of collecting stars just had a certain... Angry Birds quality that rubbed me the wrong way. GT6 also had no race longer than 24 minutes, and while a real 24 hour A-spec race is a tremendous ordeal, 1-4 hours is just right.

GT1 doesn't have that much events actually, it only has 4 in GT League, and 13 in Special Events. Though GT2 is similar in numbers as GT5/GT6/GTS' GT League, I saw GT2 as having higher producing value considering when it was made. The manufacturer events since GT5 is merged with main events like Z Heritage on GT League. I do wish for them to be placed in Brand Central instead, as now GT has put back focus on brand again as I wanted! Kaz did say that he based GT6's star system from Bad Piggies ._. GT5 does something right regarding endurance, the save in middle race feature, so you don't have to sit through 24 hours (and if combining other games, better have GT4's B-Spec which is interchangable with A-Spec, not separated like GT5 and have fast forward feature).

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Gran Turismo through its first early releases really had no competition for a realistic driving game on the market. In this day and time that is not the case as there are other titles which in many aspects really make GT look like more of an arcade game than a driving or racing experience sim.

One mistake I think they are doing is trying too cover too wide of a spectrum across too broad of a range of cars and/or racing classes and actually doing a poor job and not really getting any of them right.

As you notice most of the current top rated sims are more focusing on a much narrower scope of cars or racing classes and doing a better job of getting those details within those cars and classes right. You cannot expect the physics or tire model for a road car, a gt classed vehicle or a Formula type of vehicle to be the same or work in a realistic manner across all classes.

Maybe GT should narrow their focus to a smaller scope of vehicles at a time and really get those right first and then branch out to other car types and classes. With multiple titles already doing GT cars and Formula cars and even Nascar and most doing a very realistic excellent job maybe GT should focus on Touring car, mini style club racing classes using the road cars they like so well as the base to develop those classes and series.

If Gran Turismo ever wants to be considered in the conversation as a serious driving or racing sim (except for maybe here) rather than more of a console based arcade type of title they really need to focus on doing something driving wise at least as well if not better than other sim titles on the market.

Something else I have brought up before even if they start getting the driving and physics end top notch if they really want to be serious about being considered a top online e-sport racing title Sony needs to remove the ridiculous restrictions placed on the allowable sim gear to be used on the Playstation Console as many top online drivers are not going to be using or buying "special"associated with Sony gear to race on that platform.

Sony and Gran Turismo need to decide do they want to be an arcade classed game or be considered an actual serious driving sim moving forward.

I have been a Gran Turismo fan since the franchise first began but today there are just to many other titles that make GT to much like an arcade experience when you compare them side by side.

 

[Castrol96]

Like GT1-4

That's good news for me.

 

[Samus]

Guess I'm one of the few who wants GT7 to be like GT7, a totally fresh take on the formula.

 

[05XR8]

You're not the only one. I'll take a totally fresh game. I'd like PD do that. However, if that's not Kaz' vision, at least make it like the best games of the past, with replayability turned to 100.

 

[ScottPuss20]

Gran Turismo through its first early releases really had no competition for a realistic driving game on the market. In this day and time that is not the case as there are other titles which in many aspects really make GT look like more of an arcade game than a driving or racing experience sim.

One mistake I think they are doing is trying too cover too wide of a spectrum across too broad of a range of cars and/or racing classes and actually doing a poor job and not really getting any of them right.

As you notice most of the current top rated sims are more focusing on a much narrower scope of cars or racing classes and doing a better job of getting those details within those cars and classes right. You cannot expect the physics or tire model for a road car, a gt classed vehicle or a Formula type of vehicle to be the same or work in a realistic manner across all classes.

Maybe GT should narrow their focus to a smaller scope of vehicles at a time and really get those right first and then branch out to other car types and classes. With multiple titles already doing GT cars and Formula cars and even Nascar and most doing a very realistic excellent job maybe GT should focus on Touring car, mini style club racing classes using the road cars they like so well as the base to develop those classes and series.

If Gran Turismo ever wants to be considered in the conversation as a serious driving or racing sim (except for maybe here) rather than more of a console based arcade type of title they really need to focus on doing something driving wise at least as well if not better than other sim titles on the market.

Something else I have brought up before even if they start getting the driving and physics end top notch if they really want to be serious about being considered a top online e-sport racing title Sony needs to remove the ridiculous restrictions placed on the allowable sim gear to be used on the Playstation Console as many top online drivers are not going to be using or buying "special"associated with Sony gear to race on that platform.

Sony and Gran Turismo need to decide do they want to be an arcade classed game or be considered an actual serious driving sim moving forward.

I have been a Gran Turismo fan since the franchise first began but today there are just to many other titles that make GT to much like an arcade experience when you compare them side by side.

Gran Turismo may not have the most realistic physics anymore but why remove the very thing that has made it soo popular? We don't want a focused car list, we want a broad car list with all kinds of vehicles. Sim racers such as Assetto Corsa are great simulators but crap games because there's no career mode. GT Sport doesn't have a career mode (I say this because GT League is rubbish) in a typical sense but it has currency, tuning and mission challenges which is more than anything Assetto Corsa has. There's some kind of objective with rewards on offer, and that's what I want in a game. The physics do play a role but it's of lesser importance to me.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Gran Turismo may not have the most realistic physics anymore but why remove the very thing that has made it soo popular? We don't want a focused car list, we want a broad car list with all kinds of vehicles. Sim racers such as Assetto Corsa are great simulators but crap games because there's no career mode. GT Sport doesn't have a career mode (I say this because GT League is rubbish) in a typical sense but it has currency, tuning and mission challenges which is more than anything Assetto Corsa has. There's some kind of objective with rewards on offer, and that's what I want in a game. The physics do play a role but it's of lesser importance to me.

And you answer what you want out of the game for you which is a more arcade style game where realistic physics are not as important to you and that is fine
But the exact reason I stated why in my opinion Gran Turismo needs to decide what it wants to be. Right now in the general overall racing sim community GT is viewed as more of an arcade racer than a realistic racing sim.
If that identity will sell more games for them then they surely should pursue that avenue.
There will be fans of each type of experience but the gap has greatly widened in the last few years of GT being considered any type of legitimate realistic driving experience and compared to current multiple other titles grows ever more to being an arcade style game only as each game is released.

 

[Tornado]

Sim racers such as Assetto Corsa are great simulators but crap games because there's no career mode.

Yeah, no. Racing sims existed well before GT copied the game structure from Shutokou Battle and elevated it to AAA levels. Racing sims continued to exist well after the GT structure was codified and copied by so many through the early 2000s. The racing genre in general is not and never was defined by Gran Turismo's game structure.

 

[05XR8]

PD already focused on that mini style low car count GT racing. It didn't work for the majority of the fanbase. PD weren't allowed(again, by the fanbase) to focus on just the SPort aspect and fine tune it. This is where many wish PD would use their assests to focus on Ai, physics, etc. Instead, the larger fanbase wanted a "real" "full game" GT. Maybe we would have seen better AI, better physics, better attention to the details of simracing(tyre wear, tyre pressure, road surface, etc.), but PD weren't allowed to do that through the outcries of the fanbase.

PD rushed what they gave us in GT League, threw cars at us that have no focused groups and proceeded to try and juggle Sport Mode/FIA, while preparing for the next GT. Seriously, those of us that didn't by GT SPort at debut, those of us that cried for offline content, who knows? GT Sport might have been that focus PD needed to make the franchise move forward. I mean, Kaz said GT Sport is the beginning of the next chapter in the franchise. GT7 almost seems like(until we actually get the game) a soft reboot of the franchise.

Edit: Just read that about no career in AC.

This game is definitely not crap. I haven't touched Career because AC allows me to play the game how I want. I create my own Championships by selecting my car and each car for the AI. I change the names to real drivers and cartoon characters. I pick the point structure, laps and how many races. I choose Practice and Qualifying for my races. It's definitely not a crap game.

 

[ScottPuss20]

Yeah, no. Racing sims existed well before GT copied the game structure from Shutokou Battle and elevated it to AAA levels. Racing sims continued to exist well after the GT structure was codified and copied by so many through the early 2000s. The racing genre in general is not and never was defined by Gran Turismo's game structure.

Oh sorry, I should've added "in my opinion"

 

[BigSarj]

PD already focused on that mini style low car count GT racing. It didn't work for the majority of the fanbase. PD weren't allowed(again, by the fanbase) to focus on just the SPort aspect and fine tune it. This is where many wish PD would use their assests to focus on Ai, physics, etc. Instead, the larger fanbase wanted a "real" "full game" GT. Maybe we would have seen better AI, better physics, better attention to the details of simracing(tyre wear, tyre pressure, road surface, etc.), but PD weren't allowed to do that through the outcries of the fanbase.

PD rushed what they gave us in GT League, threw cars at us that have no focused groups and proceeded to try and juggle Sport Mode/FIA, while preparing for the next GT. Seriously, those of us that didn't by GT SPort at debut, those of us that cried for offline content, who knows? GT Sport might have been that focus PD needed to make the franchise move forward. I mean, Kaz said GT Sport is the beginning of the next chapter in the franchise. GT7 almost seems like(until we actually get the game) a soft reboot of the franchise.

Edit: Just read that about no career in AC.

This game is definitely not crap. I haven't touched Career because AC allows me to play the game how I want. I create my own Championships by selecting my car and each car for the AI. I change the names to real drivers and cartoon characters. I pick the point structure, laps and how many races. I choose Practice and Qualifying for my races. It's definitely not a crap game.

I will admit that I bought GT Sport at launch but didn't really get into it until a couple of months ago. I had a bout of nostalgia and played the single player with a controller. It was okay but I got bored rather quickly. Then I did custom races and again got bored.

I finally got over my anxiety and set up a rig and jumped into online and haven't looked back.

Which makes me wonder - of the 9.5 million sales, how many play the online mode, and how many stayed strictly in the campaign lane. Those numbers may influence PD's goal for GT7.

 

[ScottPuss20]

I will admit that I bought GT Sport at launch but didn't really get into it until a couple of months ago. I had a bout of nostalgia and played the single player with a controller. It was okay but I got bored rather quickly. Then I did custom races and again got bored.

I finally got over my anxiety and set up a rig and jumped into online and haven't looked back.

Which makes me wonder - of the 9.5 million sales, how many play the online mode, and how many stayed strictly in the campaign lane. Those numbers may influence PD's goal for GT7.

Apparently (and don't quote me), around 50% of GT Sport players have never done a Sport Mode race

 

[BigSarj]

Apparently (and don't quote me), around 50% of GT Sport players have never done a Sport Mode race

Quoted but, yeah, those numbers make sense but don't really offer much indication as to what they'll do next. Probably just more of the same but I hope they just add more realism to the driving. Not that I don't love it now but everything should improve in every iteration.

I wonder if their statement re: the haptic feedback allowing for more feel of the road surface will transfer to wheel users' hands by way of ffb.

 

[05XR8]

Not to be silly, this reminds me of the scene in The Matrix, when Smith explains The Matrix to Morpheus and The Architcet explains it to Neo. The initial GT Sport trailer of burning GT to the ground. A new game was to arise from the ashes. It could have been something great. Thing is, as in The Matrix, it would be too perfect( my meaning: the ease in which Sport Mode is accessible to everyone). GT was moving forward with the times in eSports. Why wouldn't the millions of people that bought previous games, not buy this one and use it as PD intended?

I believe in a Kaz interview, he wanted GT Sport to be for first time players and those that never drove a car before. So now, we get a next new game, that will be like the GT games we've already played, while we stay in The Matrix.

 

[o000o]

You're not the only one. I'll take a totally fresh game. I'd like PD do that. However, if that's not Kaz' vision, at least make it like the best games of the past, with replayability turned to 100.

Make sure that it's not changes for the sake of changes. Some people want only that just becaude of irrational disdain to old things, but this solution is not good.

And you answer what you want out of the game for you which is a more arcade style game where realistic physics are not as important to you and that is fine
But the exact reason I stated why in my opinion Gran Turismo needs to decide what it wants to be. Right now in the general overall racing sim community GT is viewed as more of an arcade racer than a realistic racing sim.
If that identity will sell more games for them then they surely should pursue that avenue.
There will be fans of each type of experience but the gap has greatly widened in the last few years of GT being considered any type of legitimate realistic driving experience and compared to current multiple other titles grows ever more to being an arcade style game only as each game is released.

It's intentional but you're just pinning the blame on numbers just to make a point for "quality over quantity". GT is intentionally made not as realistic as the hardcore sims. One of the GT's appeals to make more than 80 million sales is its accessibility. GT is significantly easier to get on for beginners, compared to hardcore sims like Assetto Corsa, but is realistic enough for players to make it a starting ground for the hardcore sims later.