Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Due for release on the 15th of November, Gran Turismo Sport marks the first time the game has received official FIA endorsement as it goes head-to-head in the console racing market against titles as Forza, Assetto Corsa and Project CARS. Gran Turismo has been a long running series for Sony's flagship console and the latest details shared by Polyphony reveal the team are hard at work producing a potentially epic addition to the console's racing portfolio.
With day one of the Gran Turismo Sport unveiling event in London behind us, RaceDepartment bring you a summary of what we have learnt about the new title so far.
GT Sport will contain 140 road and race vehicles upon its release in September featuring brands such as Aston Martin, Ferrari, Mercedes, Toyota, Audi, Mazda, Nissan, Alfa Romeo, Subaru and Ford amongst other top marques from around the world. As well as the many real word road and race cars, manufacturers such as Bugatti, Peugeot and Volkswagen have submitted fantasy hypercar designs to create a "Gran Turismo Vision" set of performance Supercars.
Supporting the sizable number of vehicles in the game will be 19 tracks (27 layouts), including the now obligatory Nürburgring Nordschleife (North Loop). As well as the Nordschleife and Brands Hatch, GT Sport will debut a new oval location in the form of the Northern Isle Speedway and the new Tokyo Expressway track, a large circuit based on the Tokyo Expressway road system that weaves at speed through skyscrapers and under tunnels surrounded by unforgiving tall concrete walls on both sides. Loose surface dirt tracks also make an appearance in GT Sport with the inclusion of the imaginatively titled "Dirt Track" that takes players from the Rocky Mountains to the Mexican border in America's Midwest. Polyphony promises the new off road location to have plenty of elevation changes to keep sideways sliding fans happily entertained.
Officially endorsed by the FIA motorsport governing body, Gran Turismo Sport will have two FIA-certified online championship series. The Nations Cup is a completion where players will represent their home country and race against other national teams in a series of racing events as you aim to be crowned Nations Cup Champion. The other officially sanctioned championship focus's not on nationality but by manufacturer choice. The Manufacturer Fan Cup lets players select their favourite car maker to represent them in a series of events against other drivers in the games online environment.
Both the Nations Cup and Manufacturer Fan Cup championships will benefit from professionally produced live broadcast transmissions. Here's hoping the quality and realism of these broadcasts will be a significant step up from the abysmal Project CARS showcase of a '1v1' style of racing that was a horribly executed and bastardised version of what SimRacing is really all about.
Making the most of the official FIA licence, the winner of each series will have the opportunity to attend the official FIA prize giving ceremony and pick up an award alongside real life motorsport champions from the various FIA sanctioned racing series!
Gran Turismo Sport offers a substantial offline Campaign mode designed to address the many fundamental requirements of high performance race driving allowing both beginners and the more experienced racers an opportunity to hone their skills before tackling the many offline race events and competing against real world racing rivals.
Delivered in several segments from learning basic car control skills to the finer points of on track behaviour wrapped up in an informative and entertaining selection of lessons and challenges, Gran Turismo targets drivers new to the genre and builds up their skills and experiences to encourage a competitive and safe racing standard when taking to the online racing element of the title.
Beginner’s School
From basic skills such as hitting the brakes and how to turn into a corner, fundamentals can be learned from the bottom up, which will prove invaluable for newcomers to driving games.
Mission Challenge
As you work your way through short missions, you will automatically pick up fundamental driving skills without even realising it. In the end, you will have a level of skill that will allow you to participate in major race events.
Circuit Experience
Through actual experience on a race track, you will step into the true world of high-performance driving. Use the knowledge of track layouts learned in the mission challenges to pick up the basics of how to conquer a race track.
Race Etiquette
In online, as well as real races, etiquette on the track is as important as performance. Learn the rules of etiquette and sportsmanship that’s required in all player-vs-player races. Even if you’re not a top driver with lots of confidence in your skills, you will still have plenty of fun because each player will be matched fairly with people of their own level for fair and equal online racing.
As players have come to expect with the many Gran Turismo franchise releases, a detailed livery editor will be available in GT Sport allowing players to design and share liveries for many of the models featured in the new title. From painting your own designs to adding a selection of sponsorship decals, the newly redesigned livery editor will should feature intuitive user friendly design functionality and let players show off their designs to maximum effect in the new Scapes photo mode feature added to the title.
Scapes is a new photo mode brought in to GT Sport that lets players choose from 1000 locations of "Scapes" stages to provide scenic backdrops for players to take shots of the many cars found in game. Players can select their preferred location (or "Scape"), place their car in a choice position and adjust the lighting and colour before framing the image and taking the picture. Some images can be seen below of several cars against the many Scape backgrounds. This is a nice new feature and should go some way to enhancing the experience for players who enjoy taking artistic photographs of the beautiful cars featured in GT Sport.
Release Schedule
- US, Asia, Japan - 15 November 2016
- EU - 16 November 2016
- UK & Ireland - 18 November 2016
Check out our RaceDepartment Gran Turismo Series forum for latest news and discussion about GT Sport and other Gran Turismo Series games. RaceDepartment will be keeping abreast of all the latest news coming from day 2 of the big reveal event in London. Stay tuned for more information when it becomes available!
Are you looking forward to the PS4 GT Sport release? Do you enjoy the latest screenshots? Planning to purchase the game? What do you think of the details known so far? Let us know in the comments section below!
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