It scarcely seems like it, but it’s now been three years since Gran Turismo 7 launched on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
March 4, 2022, was that launch date, and with a full three years now under its belt we thought we’d take a bit of a look back on how the game has been developing over the past 36 months.
Table of Contents
- Gran Turismo 7 – Year One
- Gran Turismo 7 – Year Two
- Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: The Updates
- Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: The Cars
- Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: The Track(s)
- Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: Esports
- Gran Turismo 7 – Year Four?
Gran Turismo 7 – Year One
Of course the first year was a little on the tumultuous side, with an update that took the game offline for almost a day and a half and throwing something of a spotlight back onto the “always online” requirement of the title. It prompted a response that featured a rare roadmap (of sorts), with debate over how fulfilled that’s been still raging to this day.
The first year also brought us some major changes, perhaps most notably the game-wide support for the brand-new PlayStation VR2 hardware coming in just as year one closed out.
Gran Turismo 7 – Year Two
Year two had its own charms too with the release of “Spec II”, the largest, most wide-ranging update to date which brought a swathe of quality of life changes alongside more new events, challenges, and cars than any other update before or since.
The update cadence remained broadly the same, bringing 3-5 new cars most months — usually at the end of a month — setting that as a fan expectation even though this monthly cycle had been noted as not particularly intended early on in the game’s life.
Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: The Updates
We don’t think it’s too unfair to suggest that the third year has been more a case of keeping the ball rolling, with neither the highs nor lows of the previous two.
There’s been some hiccups here and there, perhaps most notably the grand physics change which didn’t entirely go as planned, and the PSN outage of February 2025 — the third-longest in its history — which again highlighted GT7’s always-online requirement.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been some high points either. Perhaps the most notable was the update that brought support for the various advanced graphics modes of the new PlayStation 5 Pro console. There was also the release of the My First Gran Turismo demo, which features a partial integration with GT7.
In general, the pace of content coming to the game hasn’t changed all that much, in stark contrast to the previous title. Although a couple of vehicles arrived as one-offs later in its life, the last bulk-content update for GT Sport came two years and four months into its life, while GT7 is now at the three-year mark with fresh content still being delivered.
Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: The Cars
In total, 102 new vehicles have arrived in GT7 since launch and they’re pretty evenly spaced across the three years to date. There’s been fractionally fewer in this third year, but we’re still looking at 32 cars, compared to the 35 of previous years.
Of course that’s notably less than the posited capacity of up to 60 cars a year stated by Kazunori Yamauchi, but that’s a maximum and the difference likely comes down to the pace of licensing them all.
We have seen a slight increase in fallow months in 2024-2025 though, with four months — June, August, September, and December — seeing no content updates at all. That compares to three in the previous year and two (including the launch month) in year one, so although the amount hasn’t changed much there’s been a perception of a reduction.
There’s also arguably a gap between wider fan expectation and what the cars delivered have actually been. We don’t necessarily share the clamor for updated Gr.3 cars — though a GT3 McLaren 720S would be pretty nice — but it is odd that the game can support a flagship esports series with that category as a focus while it doesn’t feature a single car newer than 2020 and several that are two or more generations out of date.
Nonetheless, we’ve seen some Vision GT cars, a significant classic racer, a GT3-throwback F1-inspired car, and some classic Gran Turismo fodder in the shape of the Toyota HiAce van and the Mercedes-Benz Unimog. There has been some proper fan-service too, with series debuts for the E36-generation BMW M3 road car, the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, and the Peugeot 205 GTI.
Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: The Track(s)
One thing we do keep noting in our update recap videos though is the drop-off in track content. While GT7 does still have more circuit locations than any previous game, the fact is that with Daily Races, Weekly Challenges, Time Trial events, and GT World Series races, players are getting used to the same 39 locations coming up time and again.
GT7’s first year added three brand-new locations to the game — Watkins Glen, Road Atlanta, and Grand Valley — as well as a new variant of Spa. That hasn’t been matched in subsequent years, with only one new track in the second 12 months (and two new layouts at the Nurburgring location), and another in the third.
That was, of course, the Eiger Nordwand circuit which we’d seen teased previously. This circuit originally launched with Gran Turismo HD in 2006 (or 2007 outside Japan), so was a bit of a hit with fans for the nostalgia, scenery, and cowbell alone.
As we noted in our recent video, the Lake Louise snow circuit and Eiger Nordwand (the first non-North American addition in the game!) were certainly welcome additions after a track drought but neither is exactly a purpose-made racing circuit. In fact, with Grand Valley’s new road bias, we’re now more than two years past the last such addition…
Gran Turismo 7 – Year Three: Esports
The Gran Turismo World Series came back in full force this year, with four live events on three continents, breaking new ground for venues, cities, and countries.
Canada and Czechia hosted their first events, in Montreal and Prague respectively, with Tokyo staging another but in a quite literally brand-new location inside an entertainment hub in a tower block. After being the venue for the mid-season Showdown in 2023, Amsterdam brought us the final in the same riverside location.
It wasn’t without its controversies — when is it? — with a short online season of six rounds in the spring picking the finalists for all four events, and some stewarding calls during those qualification events that courted some surprise from a community which has been dealing with a fickle, automated penalty system for many years.
However, we did get to see Takuma Miyazono take his second Nations Cup title to become the most successful single driver in GTWS history, as well as a Manufacturers Cup win for first-ever winners Lexus.
Gran Turismo 7 – Year Four?
The stage is pretty well set for the next 12 months of Gran Turismo 7.
A glance at the numbers doesn’t suggest that support is waning for GT7, or that GT8 may be on its way, and we’ve not had an equivalent announcement to GT Sport’s “modest” updates that might hint at a winding down of pace. It’d be a surprise if there’s not another 8-9 updates this year, with another 30 or so cars, as well as a couple of updates to My First Gran Turismo.
We do hope Polyphony Digital has something up its sleeve for circuits in 2025-26 though. Players have never had to wait more than nine months or seven updates for a new circuit to date, and both of these milestones are coming up very soon. Anyone else remember Apricot Hill being teased before launch?
The GT World Series is also gearing up for a new season, albeit with a similarly short online qualification period as 2024’s, and though we don’t yet know what venues will be involved it’s promised to be “bigger than ever”.
Let us know your thoughts on what this next portion of GT7’s life could hold in the forum thread!
