It’s the end of the road for GT Sport.
Polyphony Digital suspended online services for the game at 0600 UTC on Wednesday January 31, with the launch of game update v1.69 (172MB). The update marks the end of the staged shutdown of the title which began in December.
With the termination of online features, all of the game’s multiplayer modes and features have been disabled, including the community, lobby, and Sport Mode. The Mileage Exchange is now closed, and all custom liveries which were not imported to Gran Turismo 7 have been deleted.
The good news: the rest of the game will remain accessible. Cars, circuits, and gameplay progress are all preserved, and players can continue to play offline sections of the game as normal.
A Long Life
GT Sport was officially supported by Polyphony Digital more than six years after its release, and the company more than doubled the game’s content since it launched in October 2017.
Previous online-capable Gran Turismo titles have only been supported for six months after they were succeeded, but Sport kept plugging on much longer than expected after Gran Turismo 7 hit store shelves.
Gran Turismo 5’s servers were closed in May 2014, half a year after Gran Turismo 6 was launched, while GT6 in turn lasted the same period after Sport’s launch when its servers were closed in March 2018.
A Game Changer
Since it was first revealed as a more esports-focused title, GT Sport has always been one of the more controversial titles in the Gran Turismo series.
On the one hand, it offered a significant departure from the familiar gameplay structure die-hard players had come to expect, offering a relatively slim selection of content (especially at launch) with a heavy focus on competition. On the other hand, it enticed players with long-awaited features and marques: GT Sport introduced a wildly popular Livery Editor to the franchise, and was the first Gran Turismo title to officially include Porsche.
It resulted in a game which was highly polished and technically strong, though it seemed to suffer an identity crisis in the eyes of many consumers. That didn’t hurt sales, though: according to leaked internal documents from Sony, GT Sport sold more than 12.7 million copies, making it the second-best-selling Gran Turismo title of all time.
The most notable thing GT Sport will be remembered for is, of course, the launch platform it provided for the Gran Turismo World Series.
Polyphony Digital hosted more than 13 live events around the world with Sport, from London, to Paris, New York, Monaco, Las Vegas, Tokyo, and Sydney. GT7 became the platform of choice in 2022, but Sport will always be where competitive Gran Turismo esports got their start.
Goodbye, GT Sport, and thanks for the memories!
See more articles on GT Sport Game Updates.
