Gran Turismo 7 Career Mode: 5 Things we want to see from GT next-gen

Gran Turismo 7 will be coming to next-gen, we just don't know when exactly yet. In the meantime, though, we can speculate and ponder what we want to see from GT7 on the PlayStation 5.

If Polyphony deliver these five aspects in Career Mode, then we could have one of the best GT's the series has ever seen!

Quality over Quantity

If you were to take Gran Turismo 5 and 6's "Premium" cars as the entire game, then they would've fared a lot better. The "standard" vehicles massively outnumbered the premiums, to the detriment of the game.

The standard vehicles not only looked like they were straight out of a PS2 game (because they were), they also didn't have a cockpit view, had no damage model and sounded terrible.

Despite its flaws, GT Sport did end the practice of the two car classes. It came at a price though, as the car count on the whole was small, by any game's standards.

We're hoping that GT7 will have at least the number of cars in that GT6 had premium vehicles. A count of 400 is nothing to shake a stick at, especially when this is the first on a new console.

Flashbacks

This one will ruffle some feathers among the die-hard Gran Turismo fandom but stick with us here.

One of the issues that Gran Turismo has faced in recent editions has been the accessibility of its game. This is reflected in the sales of the games, nothing has topped GT3 on the PS2's record sales.

Playing GT for the first time is, and always has been, a very steep learning curve. That shouldn't change, but it should be made easier for the rookies that are among us.

Currently, if you make a mistake and lose your race, the only options are to either accept it and move on, or restart. That's a very easy way to frustrate your player and make them play a different game that doesn't punish so harshly.

Of course, for this won't affect the seasoned veterans, they'll turn this assist off like they would Traction Control or ABS. This could really help flatten the learning curve for newbies though and get them playing for longer.

Emphasis on Career Mode

To put it simply, the Career Mode in GT Sport was poor. Not only by GT's standards, but anybody's, it was shockingly bare bones.

We admire the direction that GT Sport was going in, but the problem was that Single Player got ignored.

From the reveal trailer last year, it appears as though single player will get more of a fair shot this time around.

We're not asking for miracles; we just want a large number of circuits and cars available from day one and not have to wait years to get a decent number.

True Haptic Feedback

Gran Turismo has always been at the forefront of gaming technology. We don't expect that will change with GT7, so something we should see is the best haptic feedback we've seen from a racing game yet.

Haptic feedback is the new vibrations system for PS5's DualSense controller. Instead of one type of vibration changing in intensity depending on what you're doing, haptic has different types of vibrations.

This means that it will change depending on whether you're on tarmac, gravel, grass or any other surface you're on.

Given how enthusiastic GT has been about new technology in the past, we'd strongly guess that we'll see haptic feedback be optimised for GT7.

Proper Damage Model

This is something we've been wanting in GT since the PS2 days and Polyphony are yet to deliver it. It's so disappointing how you can ram into a concrete wall at 200 mph and receive superficial damage.

You won't hear crunching metal like in Burnout 3, just a hollow "donk" to tell you that you made contact.

With the level of detail that is on show in GT Sport, it's laughable that a proper damage model hasn't been implemented by the developers. After all, this is supposed to be the Real Driving Simulator.

We understand that some series like the Official Formula 1 game cannot have a true damage model due to licencing issues.

We also respect that some cars in GT may have this issue as well, particularly the high-end racing vehicles.

However, surely Toyota will allow for one of its Corolla's to lose a win mirror in Gran Turismo.

For a game that is rightfully praised for the quality of its simulation, the lack of a damage model really takes you out of the immersion. Let's hope that Polyphony finally gets the message.