Gran Turismo 7 has been confirmed for release next year, but which features it will have hasn't been revealed yet. Gran Turismo games haven't had a good relationship with damage models, as Polyphony has to an extent left these out of its game.
Will Gran Turismo 7 have damage? We've got everything you need to know right here!
A troubled past
Gran Turismo didn't have any kind of damage model in its early days. This was fine, as the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2 struggled with that level of simulation. However, by the time GT5 was released on the PS3, gamers were calling for change.
In truth, that change never came, as to this day, you cannot destroy your car like you can in most other racing sims. In Gran Turismo Sport, you can literally drive head-on into a wall at 200 mph and have nothing but scratches to show for it.
Even some mobile games like Real Racing have damage enabled, so why does GT persist going against the tide? We have a few theories...
Will Gran Turismo 7 have damage?
We don't know what kind of budget Polyphony operates on, but it's probably not as big as you'd expect. It isn't cheap to purchase and maintain a licence with a car manufacturer, let alone dozens of them. So, when Polyphony get these licences, they might have to do so without the option to destroy their cars in any way.
It all boils down to car companies not wanting to see the motors smashed up in the virtual world, it doesn't exactly make onlookers think of quality. Obviously, in the real world, they can't control who drives their cars nor prevent accidents. However, in the virtual world, damage can be turned off at the press of a button.
It's a similar situation to that, that the Formula 1 games found themselves in until recently, although that has changed now.
Another theory is similar to the first one, that Polyphony doesn't have the resource available to program in damage for all of their cars. There are hundreds of cars in GT games, some even have thousands, so to allocate people to focus on the damage when deadlines are tight is a big call.
Finally, and this is a stretch, but it does hold some water, Polyphony just want to focus on the racing, plain and simple. After all, Gran Turismo is the Real Driving Simulator, not the Real Crashing Simulator. Then again, ploughing into a wall at break-neck speed and escaping without even damaging your headlights isn't very "real" either.
So, will GT7 have damage? Given past form, we'd be inclined to say no, but with a new system, we could have this feature finally in a GT game.