A new Gran Turismo 7 game update will be coming to PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles next week, once again bringing three new vehicles for players to drive, tune, and paint over the coming days and weeks.
As usual, the information comes by way of the traditional teaser image from Polyphony Digital studio boss Kazunori Yamauchi, who posted a message to Twitter confirming the approximate timing of the update and a disguised image of the three new vehicles.
That of course means it’s time for the community to begin its deductions of what the three vehicles are, but it seems relatively apparent that it’s a selection of three road cars all from Japan this month — and it looks like it fits a recent pattern of sporty, oddball, and crossover.
We’ll begin with the car on the right, which looks like it’s the car everyone was predicting would arrive in the June 1.60 update: the Nissan Qashqai. It’s a vehicle that proved an enormous success for Nissan, kickstarting the trend for crossovers, or SUV-styled vehicles based on unibody road car platforms, in Europe.
Several similar vehicles have been recent additions to the game — with the Honda CR-V, Mazda CX-30, Peugeot 2008, and Toyota C-HR all added this year — so it’s little surprise that the Qashqai, the class archetype, is joining the club.
Although it’s clear that it’s the current-gen vehicle, we won’t know until next week which precise model it is, or whether it’s pre- or post-facelift. We’ll note that if it sports the e-Power setup, which uses a 1.5-liter three-cylinder to generate electricity for the motor that drives the car, it’ll likely have few tuning options.
A slightly more exciting Nissan will be joining it, but we’re going to have to reserve some uncertainty for precisely which one. The shape itself is obvious — an R34-generation Nissan Skyline — but there’s a few possibilities beyond that point, besides the V-Spec II model already in the game.
We reckon that there’s a couple of more likely options here, given that it appears to have a non-standard front-bumper and no NACA duct on the hood. The first is the NISMO Z-Tune, a factory tuned 500hp version which would join the 400R under the game’s NISMO brand.
Alternatively it could be a Mine’s model, like the V-Spec II Nur seen being “scanned” in the Gran Turismo movie and which shares a lot of the Z-Tune’s front end. That would require a new in-game brand, which is something we don’t often see, but would bring back a company that had been in the series since GT2.
That leaves us with the final and much smaller car at the back of the shot, which will expand our currently limited Kei car offering in GT7. The headlight configuration is a dead giveaway that this will be the Honda N-ONE, but it’s a bit tricky to tell which generation and model it will be.
We think we can spot a wider, square front bumper which hints that it’ll either be a higher-spec first-gen or a second-gen vehicle, possibly (judging by the rear wing) the top-specification RS grade from either.
This would grant it not only the full-fat, 63hp turbo version of the three-cylinder engine but a six-speed manual instead of the standard CVT — opening tuning options, including engine swaps, down the line. Did we mention that there’s a one-make race series for it too?
Of course these car teasers are only the first step of a game update’s news cycle, and they contain no other information about any other new game features or content — about which we’ll learn in the coming days.
We’d expect the usual fare of a suite of three new races to suit the new cars, a collection-focused Extra Menu Book, the potential for a new race-based Bonus Menu Book, five-to-ten engine swaps (probably including one new engine), and some new Scapes. At present there’s no evidence to suggest whether there is or isn’t a new circuit — we’d always hope for but, after a year since the last one, not expect one.
If the usual schedule holds firm, we’d expect the update to land on Thursday July 24, with more information coming on Wednesday July 23 via the PlayStation Blog and official Gran Turismo site.
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