It's been a long time since we had a "true" Gran Turismo game, so with a whole new generation of racers taking on their first numbered GT title, welcome to our Gran Turismo 7 beginner's guide!
If you're new to racing, or just new to Gran Turismo, this is the guide for you.
Getting your settings right
Life in Gran Turismo 7 starts before you hit the track. If you navigate to the top left of the home screen and then hit options you can change several settings.
This is where you will be able to change the difficulty of the AI, so if you are struggling to keep up or disappearing into the distance you can fix that here.
You can also fully customise your controller, be that the DualSense or a wheel, from here. Change where your gear shift buttons are, or even how you steer. You can also adjust the vibration settings and trigger strength here.
The DualSense controller is amazing for racing, but if you are new you can tune down the strength of the triggers. These can be especially stiff on the brakes so younger players or those less used to it may want to turn it down to "weak" or even off entirely.
These are just the starting settings though. You also need to adjust your own driver assists.
Gran Turismo 7 has a big range of driving assists for players. You can get to these by selecting a race and then clicking settings -> assist settings on the race start screen.
Here you can pick an automatic transmission, your level of traction control, if you want some level of brake & steering assist, along with the racing line style and even countersteering assistance.
It really is a complete suite that new racers should take advantage of. Our recommendation for brand new players is to use automatic transmission, the full 5 traction control, and set ABS to default.
After that set driving line to "all" and turn on the braking indicator.
As you get more comfortable racing these can be peeled away in layers. Start by setting the driving line to corner indicators and using manual gears. Then drop the traction control and so on.
You'll go faster with all assists off, but it will take a good deal of practice to get proficient enough to stay on the track!
Follow the path
Some players just want to dive straight in at the deep end and grab the fastest car they can. Gran Turismo 7 doesn't really let you do that. Instead, players start with a lowly Japanese compact car and have to build up to an elite racer.
This is great for new players, and you shouldn't be in a rush to leave behind the more mundane cars.
Driving the starter car Toyota Aqua for a while will help you get used to the way Gran Turismo 7 feels and plays. By following the path laid out for you in the GT Cafe not only can you unlock extra tracks and cars to use, but you'll also get an amazing lesson about the importance of each type of car and the historic manufacturers.
This is all done at a pace to keep things manageable for new players, and as such you shouldn't be too quick to buy a rapid Gr.3 car from Brand Central and start thrashing it around.
Look after your credits
Money makes the world go round, and it is no different in Gran Turismo 7.
while you do earn a good number of cars, eventually you'll want to buy your dream car and tune it up. That's all well and good, but credits are hard to come by in GT7, so make sure it's the right car for you!
With just a few thousand credits for winning campaign races, dropping a million or more on a car and upward of 100,000 on tuning options is a huge investment.
You can't use one car for every race either, so if you really do want to invest in a car then it may be best to start small with something from the Used Car Dealership and then tune it up. If you go straight to the Legend Cars showroom you could soon find all your credits gone!
Test yourself
They say practice makes perfect, but practice also takes a long time!
Thankfully, Gran Turismo has always had this in mind, and has plenty of training programs to complete. The Licence Centre is the classic GT spot. Here you have a series of 50 tests that start with simple straight line braking and progress to complete laps of tricky circuits in the wet.
Then there are Missions, where you can get used to slipstreaming and overtaking.
There is also Circuit Experience, which is available for each track. This breaks the circuit down in to five manageable sectors (or 10 for the Nordschleife!) so that you can practice chains of corners and then put it all together for a 1 Lap Attack against the clock.
The Circuit Experience is done with no other car on the track, giving you the chance to learn in peace, and then repeat sectors over and over until you know it completely.
Tune me up
The Tuning Shop is perhaps the most valuable part of Gran Turismo 7 outside of the races itself.
Here, you can upgrade your car and make it more powerful and raceable. Everything from new air filters to turbos and better tyres are available here.
While some parts are expensive, upgrading a car to keep it competitive is cheaper than buying a new one for a fresh race.
There are a couple of key upgrades you should get for basically any car you are planning to race. Then you can extend a car's life by getting even more.
However, that's not where tuning ends in Gran Turismo 7.
You can set cars up with a huge amount of detail. Everythign from anti-roll bar stiffness to camber, downforce levels, and eventually even add ballast or tweak the differential.
If you're racing at a place like Monza where it's all straights or a tri-oval like Daytona then lowering the front and rear downforce in this screen will give you better speed, helping you overtake AI cars even faster.
If you're at a more technical circuit like Suzuka then you'll want to add a bit of downforce.
That's it. Now you are ready to tackle the wider world of Gran Turismo 7, and with a bit of practice even hit Sport Mode and go face other racers!