Gran Turismo Sport

Gran Turismo Sport
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Polyphony Digital
Publisher	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform	PlayStation VR (VR Tour mode); PlayStation 4 (base game)
Device	PlayStation VR
Operating System	PlayStation 4
Type	Game
Genre	Racing
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	October 17, 2017 (North America); October 18, 2017 (Europe)
App Store	PlayStation Store
Website	https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/gtsport/

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Gran Turismo Sport (also called GT Sport) is a 2017 racing game developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. It is a flat-screen game with limited, separate virtual reality content for the PlayStation VR headset: a driving mode, VR Tour, in which the player races one AI opponent from the driver's seat, and a showroom for viewing cars. The rest of the game cannot be played in VR. The game launched on 17 October 2017 in North America and on 18 October 2017 in Europe, where Sony also released a PlayStation VR bundle containing the game.

Polyphony Digital had first said that all of the game would be playable in VR, then said in late 2016 that VR would be limited to one part of the game. Reviewers praised the sense of sitting in the cockpit but criticized how little there was to do in the mode. Polyphony Digital's later game Gran Turismo 7 added full PlayStation VR2 support in 2023. The online services of Gran Turismo Sport ended on 31 January 2024; the offline parts of the game remain playable.

Reviewed 13 October 2026. Release dates and editions, PS VR bundle contents, VR mode contents and limits, VR announcement history and delay, update 1.15 VR Time Trial, review quotes and scores, Metacritic score, end of online services and delisting, and GT7 PS VR2 update against each cited source. About review dates.

Gameplay

Outside VR, players of Gran Turismo Sport race against many cars on track across several modes. The VR content is separate from the main game. PlayStation LifeStyle's review describes it as "split into two separate modes: VR Driving and VR Showroom".

Racing in VR

In the driving part of VR Tour the player sits in the cockpit and races a single AI car. In January 2018, UploadVR described the mode as allowing players "to race one other AI car in any of the game's vehicles and on any of its tracks". Before each race the player picks a mode suited to their skill level, and the beginner settings add visual guidance on track. Road to VR wrote in March 2018 that the AI opponent's difficulty could not be changed, and called that difficulty "frankly laughable". PlayStation LifeStyle noted that some options, such as certain time conditions, could not be selected in VR, and that having to watch the mirrors while driving added strategy to a race.

Kazunori Yamauchi, the president of Polyphony Digital, said at E3 2017 that VR would support only one-on-one races and tied the limit to the "really high rendering loads" of VR. In a January 2018 interview he said there were no plans for multiplayer in VR.

The amount of content in VR was reported differently at different times. In June 2017 UploadVR reported that all 177 cars in the game could be driven in VR, but that only a third of its 19 tracks would be available. At the European launch, Sony's PlayStation Blog stated that "every single race track in the game is playable in VR" and referred to "over 130 different cars that are playable in VR Tour". UploadVR's launch review noted that VR Tour awarded only a small amount of experience points, so unlocking more tracks required playing the standard game.

VR Showroom

The second VR mode lets the player look at the game's 3D car models in VR; UploadVR's launch review called it a gallery mode. PlayStation LifeStyle wrote that the showroom allows the player "to walk around the beautiful cars" but not to sit inside them, and compared it unfavorably with the similar mode in Driveclub VR.

VR Time Trial

VR Time Trial was added on 29 March 2018 in version 1.15, a free update that also added new cars, a new track and new championships. In the PlayStation Blog announcement, Yamauchi wrote that expanding the VR mode had been one of the most frequent player requests, and that players would now earn rewards in both Time Trial and VR Tour modes. According to Road to VR, the update let PS VR owners run time trials on all available circuits.

Development

Gran Turismo Sport was unveiled at Sony's Paris Games Week press conference on 27 October 2015, where Yamauchi confirmed that the game was being developed for PlayStation VR. In a May 2016 interview with VideoGamer, he said his plan was for "all aspects" of the game to be playable in VR. That month Sony set a release date of 15 November 2016 for the PS4 game.

On 30 August 2016, Yamauchi announced that the game would miss its November date and move to 2017, writing that "we realize we need more time to perfect GT Sport". In a Eurogamer interview published in November 2016, he said VR would be "one part of the game", because making the whole game playable in VR would be "a strain on the players". In the same interview he said a "VR Tour mode" would be included.

The VR mode was first shown in public at a PS4 Pro launch event in London in November 2016, and Sony's PlayStation Experience trailer in December 2016 confirmed limited VR support on select cars and tracks. At PlayStation Experience in Anaheim, the VR demo ran on about five cockpit stations with steering wheels and pedals; PlayStation LifeStyle's previewer reported no motion sickness "despite driving well over 100 miles per hour". At E3 2017 the mode was again shown with a single-driver cockpit, a steering wheel and pedals; UploadVR's hands-on found the races comfortable and saw little loss of visual quality in VR, but called the one-on-one mode "yet another cool tech demo for VR".

Release

Yamauchi announced the release date on the PlayStation Blog on 13 July 2017. The Limited Edition was priced at US$69.99 (CA$89.99) and the Digital Deluxe Edition at US$79.99 (CA$99.99). In Europe, Sony released a Gran Turismo Sport PS VR bundle on launch day, 18 October 2017, containing a physical copy of the standard edition, a PlayStation VR headset, a PlayStation Camera and PlayStation VR Worlds. Availability varied by country.

Date	Event	Notes
17 October 2017	PS4 release in North America	Includes the PlayStation VR Tour mode
18 October 2017	European release and PS VR bundle	Bundle with PlayStation VR, PlayStation Camera and PlayStation VR Worlds
January 2018	Free update	New cars and a new track that could be used in VR
29 March 2018	Version 1.15	Added VR Time Trial
1 December 2023	Add-on sales end	Add-on items could no longer be bought on PlayStation Store
January 2024	Store delisting	Game removed from sale on PlayStation Store without an announcement
31 January 2024	End of online services	Online features ended at 06:00 UTC; offline portions still playable

GTPlanet reported in January 2024 that Sony had removed the game from PlayStation Store sites worldwide without announcing it, and that digital owners could still download it again. Polyphony Digital's end-of-service notice states that "the offline portions of the game can still be played, including purchased Add-Ons", while Sport mode, Open Lobby, community features and custom liveries ended on 31 January 2024. The VR modes are not among the online features that the notice lists as ending, and VR Tour never had multiplayer.

Reception

On Metacritic, the PlayStation 4 version has a Metascore of 75 ("generally favorable") based on 83 critic reviews. The aggregate covers the whole game, not the VR mode alone.

Publication	Score	Notes
Metacritic (aggregate)	75/100	PS4, 83 critic reviews
PlayStation LifeStyle	7/10	Whole-game review with a VR section
UploadVR	No score	VR-specific launch impressions

Jamie Feltham of UploadVR called the VR support "an amazing VR experience without anywhere near enough content". He wrote that it gave "a genuine sense of actually sitting in the driver's seat" and that the cockpits had been recreated "with lavish detail". He criticized the lack of a time trial option at launch and the absence of multiplayer, which in his view put it "far behind Driveclub VR". He judged the visuals to be "about on-par with Dirt Rally and a little better than Driveclub VR", with muddier textures and less environmental detail than the flat game, and concluded that the VR content alone did not justify buying the game.

Tyler Treese of PlayStation LifeStyle wrote that "playing Gran Turismo Sport in virtual reality feels amazing" and that, despite a drop in resolution, it looked much better than Driveclub VR. He called the VR Showroom "awfully tacked-on" and the driving mode "super bare bones", and listed among the review's negatives that "VR is tacked-on as an extra despite being the best way to play".

Legacy

Polyphony Digital's later game Gran Turismo 7 received a free update on 21 February 2023 that made every race and game mode playable on PlayStation VR2, except 2-player split screen.