Gran Turismo Sport

Sony’s big end-of-year event is fast approaching. The PlayStation Experience, held December 3 and 4 in Anaheim, California, is a rare opportunity for gamers to go hands-on with a wide collection of the company’s offerings and hear from the developers. This year, the list of 60+ studios includes Polyphony Digital.

In a game designed for online competition, the announcement of rally racing in Gran Turismo Sport came as a bit of a surprise. Although rally first appeared in Gran Turismo 2 — and has introduced real-world rally champions to the sport — off-road racing has always felt like a bit of an afterthought in GT games.

Way back in June after the Copperbox reveal event, we first broke the news that GT Sport’s sound design would be composed with an entirely new system. Then just recently we reported Eurogamer’s impressions on the game that included some high praise about improvements in the in-game audio. This area has never been the strongest suit in the GT franchise but that looks to be changing as we take a look at the above direct audio capture video uploaded by MotoGamesTV.

Last week offered quite an explosion of information on not just the PS4 Pro, but GT Sport. For the first time since the delay announcement at the end of summer, Polyphony was on hand at a demonstration of its upcoming game, sharing details on what’s achievable on the new, more powerful hardware. Chief amongst these revelations was our first look at VR in GT Sport, tempered by the news it would be limited to a dedicated “VR Tour Mode“.

While Gran Turismo Sport may no longer be scheduled for release this month, that hasn’t prevented the veritable explosion of news coming out of the PS4 Pro event in London which came to an end this past Thursday.

Last month, the GTPlanet community was quick to take note of what sounded like an improvement in Gran Turismo Sport’s vehicle audio design. Sure enough, amidst all the latest conversation about image resolution, HDR, and PSVR capability, a report from Sony’s PS4 Pro event in London seemingly confirms Polyphony Digital’s progress in the audio department.

With all the new information coming straight from the PS4 Pro Event in Big Ben’s hometown, we’re getting our first real view of GT Sport post-delay announcement. As we learned yesterday, the game will support 4K resolution and HDR via PS4 Pro. Now, some more light has been shone on the exact nature of these specifications.

The news keeps on rolling out of London. We’ve already seen the first footage of GT Sport utilizing both PS4 Pro and PSVR, and heard the revelation that Kazunori Yamauchi at one point considered outsourcing to speed up franchise development. The latter tidbit came care of Videogamer.com, the same source for the latest news: PlayStation VR support will only feature in a dedicated ‘VR Tour’ mode.

As the launch of the PlayStation 4 Pro beckons, Sony and many developers have taken to London for a launch event showing off the console and the type of improvements existing and upcoming games will host on the super-powered PS4. Kazunori Yamauchi was in attendance to show off what GT Sport will be capable of (check out the first footage of the game running on the system as well as using PSVR) and discuss the nuances of developing the newest title.

More details are quickly leaking out of the dedicated PS4 Pro event, held yesterday and today in London, England. For GT Sport, we’ve already heard confirmation that the game will support both 4K (through upscaling) and HDR, as well as the PlayStation VR peripheral. Today, we’ve got our first glimpse at all of the above, coming to us care of Adam ‘Grizwords’ Mathew, Editor of Official PlayStation Magazine Australia.

Well that didn’t take long. Sony’s dedicated PS4 Pro event got underway earlier today in London — after news of it broke earlier this week — and details are already starting to leak out. Most pertinent to sim-racing fans is the news that GT Sport will be taking full advantage of Sony’s new powerhouse, as confirmed by Kazunori Yamauchi himself.

The PS4 Pro is due to land on shelves across the globe next week after being unveiled back in September. As expected, Sony is gearing up with a press-only event focusing on the new hardware, and it kicks off in London tomorrow.

Aside from the recent news of Ayrton Senna having a presence in GT Sport, details on the game continue to be far and few between since the announcement of its delay. With November just hours away, it appears something may be on the way as residents of Croatia will soon have their own opportunity to try the game for themselves on the show floors of Reboot Infogamer.

Senna TV, a channel dedicated to all things Ayrton-related, was in Japan recently to interview Polyphony head Kazunori Yamauchi. While talk naturally revolves around the legendary F1 driver, eagle-eyed Gran Turismo fans are treated to a few brief glimpses into Gran Turismo Sport, including our first look at future hardware in action.

With many details still being kept in the dark regarding Gran Turismo Sport, the full car and track roster expected in-game remains a mystery. Since the original info blowout at the Copper Box event in May, there have been occasional car reveals (Hyundai Genesis Gr. 3, Kazunori’s own BMW M6 GT3) and a single new track shown off (Fishermans Ranch). In terms of official announcements, Polyphony has remained silent on that front since the game’s delay to sometime in 2017.

Paris Games Week 2016 got underway yesterday. For Gran Turismo fans, the event holds significance, for it was at last year’s expo that the latest chapter in Polyphony’s racing franchise was first introduced. With 366 days since that initial reveal, we’re looking back to get an idea of what’s changed since then, and — thanks to a delay pushing the title into 2017 — where GT Sport is heading.

Due to the broad range of video game conferences GT Sport has been appearing at lately, we’ve been witnessing a great deal of off-screen recordings the last few weeks. While arguably the biggest shock came from the surprisingly meaty Mercedes-AMG sounds we showed you earlier this week, the latest additions provide additional glimpses at what seems to be the latest build.

There’s no real way to dance around it: engine sounds have not been one of Gran Turismo’s strong points, historically. While a few of the 1200+ cars in GT6 howled and growled authentically, the majority left a lot to be desired for many players. This latest video, straight from the floor of the Paris Motor Show, could be a sign of those days drawing to a close.

We all remember Fishermans Ranch dirt track, don’t we? Doubtlessly it was one of the main highlights this past August at Gamescom, as Polyphony gave a name to one of the dirt tracks set to appear in GT Sport. Being part of the series since the earliest days, this racing domain will play an important role in GT Sport’s diversity. Therefore, we’re happy to share the new gameplay footage recorded during 2016 Warsaw Gaming Week by MotoGamesTV.

While we keep our fingers crossed that GT Sport will appear on sale in January 2017, the chances to try out out the latest build of Polyphony Digital’s upcoming driving game keep rolling in. Just last week we caught new Brands Hatch gameplay video from Russia (and a look at the new Hyundai Gr.3 car earlier today), so we hope fresh and valuable materials will appear in France and Saudi Arabia, the next two locations chosen for GT Sport’s continued road tour.