Back in November, we made our case for a follow up to Tourist Trophy. It was all a bit of wishful thinking, but still something we really wanted. In a recent interview with Game Watch at the 2018 Taipei Game Show, Kazunori Yamauchi offered a nugget of information about the franchise.
Unfortunately, it’s not the news we were hoping for.
According to Yamauchi-san, there are no current plans for a Tourist Trophy sequel. This doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about it though.
Following up his statement about the lack of plans, Kaz indicates a motorcycle game is still the back of his mind. This is enough to rekindle our hopes of a sequel to the 2006 Tourist Trophy.
Also, rather interestingly, Kaz mentions that one day bikes could join the GT series instead of in their own bespoke game. This idea is nothing new: back in 2005 when we got our first glimpse of Gran Turismo HD, bikes were part of the package.
An early GTHD screenshot showed three bikes alongside a smattering of cars from GT4. At the time, we thought it was almost a shoe-in for an upcoming GT5 title. Unfortunately, this never came to pass.
Now, three full-game releases after GTHD, we’re still without motorcycles.
We’ve heard before how GT Sport is a new era in the franchise. What better time than to add some two-wheeled monsters? We’ve seen this in the past with Drive Club and Test Drive Unlimted 2. In both cases, these titles were more on the arcade side of the spectrum.
We haven’t seen a proper sim racing game on the level of Gran Turismo to feature both cars and bikes. If GT Sport did implement bikes in a future update, this would revolutionize the genre.
Despite our renewed interest though, we still won’t hold our breath. But given the amount of content from both updates 1.10 and 1.11, anything is possible.
Until we see motorcycles in GT, we can at least get our bike fix with the upcoming TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge.
Featured image courtesy of RL_23.
See more articles on Kazunori Yamauchi, Taipei Game Show, and Tourist Trophy.
