Gran Turismo fans have been waiting with bated breath for a more traditional new entry in the series nearly a decade at this point, but with GT7 now out, that wait is finally over. Offering a bevy of content and brimming with a love for car culture like you wouldn’t believe, this is a huge, expansive game that’s got a lot of balls in the air, and newcomers especially might feel a little intimidated as they first jump into its offerings. With that in mind, here, we’ll be going over a few basic pointers that should help you get acclimated with Gran Turismo 7 in its early hours.
MISSIONS
Gran Turismo 7 boasts a healthy single player career mode in the form of GT Cafe, but it doubles as an excellent entry point for all players as well. As we mentioned, there’s a lot going on in this game, but the first thing you should prioritize as you begin playing is to head over into the cafe and take on its missions. From teaching you the basics of driving, braking with the right timing, turning corners, and more to even helping you figure out how to tune your cars and upgrade your rides, these missions essentially help you get familiar with the ins and outs of the games early on in an organic manner, so our advice would be to get down to tackling them as soon as you jump into the driver’s seat.
CREDITS
Using credits to purchase vehicles and parts for your fleet of cars is central to Gran Turismo 7’s progression system, and it isn’t surprising for a game launching in 2022 that a lot of that can be purchased with real money. And sure, that’s always an option for you if you’re short on time or just don’t have the patience to earn the required amount through gameplay- our advice, however, would be to ignore the microtransactions. GT7 hands out credits to players at a rather decent cadence if you’re doing well in races, while tackling the aforementioned missions will see you regularly unlocking new cars to add to your roster as well. Focus on that, and you’ll have a healthy pool of credits to spend pretty quickly.
USED CARS
If you find that you don’t have enough credits and are looking to buy a better car, the Used Cars dealership is always a viable option. You can head in and purchase cars for lower prices here, and while it goes without saying that the overall quality of vehicles on offer in this section is diluted as compared to if you were buying new vehicles, it’s still not a bad option in the slightest. Purchasing vehicles on the cheap and then using the money you saved to buy parts to soup up that vehicle is a solid strategy for those who want to be more judicious with their spending.
AUDIO
Gran Turismo 7 makes huge strides over its predecessors in the audio department, and on top of contributing significantly to the game’s simulation and how authentic it feels, it has a very tangible and immediate impact on the actual gameplay as well. During races, for instance, paying attention to the audio is often a huge help in figuring out if there’s an opponent closing in on you from behind, and it’s a great way to measure both their distance from you and from what direction they’re coming at you. In many cases, in fact, it’s more preferable to checking the rear view mirror.
PERFORMANCE POINTS
This one should really go without saying, but given how crucial it is to being able to consistently perform well and make regular progress, it deserves to be mentioned nonetheless. If ever you find that you’ve hit something of a wall and are failing to do well against opponents who’re just doing far better than you are, it’s time to go back to the tuning shop. Check your car’s Performance Points value, and making adjustments and customizations accordingly. Buying better parts to kick up that number is, more often than not, the way to go.
MAINTENANCE
Gran Turismo 7’s love for cars isn’t just limited to letting you build up your roster of vehicles and learning more about their history. You have to take care of the vehicles you have as well. Use the same car for too long, and you’ll begin noticing a dip in its performance with time- which makes sense, of course. As such, it’s best to keep up maintenance for your vehicles. Every so often, make sure to change their oils or head into the car wash, because you’ll notice an improvement in performance pretty much every time you do that.
WEATHER
In its bid to offer the ultimate racing simulation experience, Gran Turismo 7 ropes in a host of systems and mechanics that are constantly working behind the scenes to effect gameplay. Weather is a big one- GT7 simulates weather to a ridiculously obsessive degree, with even things such as the position of the planets in the sky having microcosmic effects on things such as temperature, humidity, and more. So how can you use that to your advantage? Well, as with most things in the game, you have to pay attention to it. If, for instance, you’re about to race on a track under the bright, baking sun, you can be sure that the track’s surface will offer much better grip, and can make adjustments to your tires (or your driving style) accordingly.
TUNING
Once you get familiar and comfortable enough with Gran Turismo 7’s ins and outs and its fundamental mechanics, it’s time to head into the tuning shop. This is where you can dive into the game’s vast offerings to tweak things with your vehicles to your liking. There’s a staggering amount of options available in the garage that encompass a whole host of parameters that can bring about granular but highly effective changes in how your vehicle performs, and while this in particular isn’t exactly recommended for newcomers, if you do know what you’re doing and invest some time into it, you’ll see very noticeable results.
SPORT MODE
Gran Turismo 7’s vast array of content also includes the online multiplayer-centric Sport mode, which, as its name suggests, is essentially all of GT Sport packed into the game. Your Driver Rating and Sportsmanship Rating will be key to your progress in Sport Mode, so it’s obviously crucial to always keep an eye on these, but another thing to keep in mind is that both of these are affected by each other. If you’re driving rashly during races, for instance, that’ll affect your Sportsmanship Rating, which, in turn, will see your Driver Rating taking a hit as well. Both feeding into each other in several ways, so always keep that in mind.
DIFFICULTY
Gran Turismo 7 is an unapologetic, hardboiled racing sim, which means it does, of course, place quite an emphasis on being challenging. Not always though- this is a far more approachable game than GT games have been in quite some time, which is amazing for newcomers. Once you do get familiar enough with the game though, our advice would be to ramp up the difficulty. Thanks to a combination of incredible AI and its excellent simulation mechanics, that’s when Gran Turismo 7 truly kicks into gear, and while it goes without saying that that’s not something that everyone is going to enjoy, if you’re feeling confident enough that you understand the game’s systems, we’d recommend bumping up the difficulty.
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