The best place to play just keeps getting better.
Posted by PlayStation on Thursday, April 6, 2017
We’ve got an unexpected Gran Turismo surprise to kick off the week. What you can catch in the short 15-second clip above is what seems to be our first glimpse at a new track in Polyphony Digital’s upcoming racer.
Yes, calling the shot featuring the Vision GT machines from SRT and Mazda “brief” is putting it mildly. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. Nonetheless, after nearly a year of footage of the same selection of tracks — Nürburgring, Brands Hatch, Willow Springs, Tokyo Expressway, Northern Isle, and Fishermans Ranch — this could mark the start of another round of track reveals by Polyphony.
Gran Turismo Sport’s track roster remains a relative mystery. We have a rough idea of over two-thirds of the vehicle lineup (thanks to the GTPlanet community’s work in this thread), but know only six locations out of the game’s proposed 19. Polyphony has stated 27 different layouts will be available across these circuits, and so far, we’ve only seen eight.
So where could this seemingly new circuit be? Initial guesses peg it as the long-missed El Capitan circuit, last seen in Gran Turismo on PSP in 2009. The epic mountain vistas could certainly be a suitable backdrop for a current-gen remake of that PD-designed fantasy track.
The Alps are a popular guess too. The European mountain range has a long history within the franchise, stretching back to the days of the first PlayStation with Gran Turismo 2. In that title, a fictional circuit traced its way through Grindelwald, a small village found to the north of the Eiger, a 13,020 ft mountain that played host to its own circuit in the PS3 era.
Matterhorn was a new track for Gran Turismo 6 back in 2013, offering a distinctly Swiss take on the mountain range with a variety of circuits featuring drastic elevation changes. This doesn’t seem to match any portion of the four circuits found in GT6 though, likely eliminating it from the list, unless Polyphony has given the relatively new location a massive remodel.
Another possible answer is that the circuit is a creation of the Track Path Editor. The TPE has never been linked to GT Sport since the game’s announcement only a month after the feature landed in GT6 in September 2015. It’s a bit of a long shot then, but there’s some good reasons to consider it.
For one, there’s the infamously long gestation period of the TPE. Spending years to develop a feature for a one-and-done application seems like an odd choice, leading some to suspect it was being built for a future application as well.
Secondly, Kazunori Yamauchi teased “yet-to-be revealed cutting edge experiences” when GT Sport was delayed to this year last August. While DiRT 4 may have a procedural track generator when it launches this June, no other game this generation has a feature quite like the Track Path Editor.
No matter what this mystery track ends up being — a new experience or an old favorite — it’s worth mentioning that Gran Turismo Sport is displayed in this PlayStation ad with three other titles that have all released recently. Could a release date be on the horizon? The recent closed beta seems to be performing well, as the team recently announced plans to move to Phase Two.
Which track do you think is in the video? Let us know, and stay tuned for more GT Sport news.
Thanks for the tip, Eddie!
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