I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with Gran Turismo 7, but it’s still kind of in rough shape. In fact, it’s in rougher shape than the day it launched.
An update last week broke a number of licence tests and driving missions that involve rallying and drifting by fitting the player’s car with racing tires, which are pretty useless off road, or for breaking traction. The multiplayer lobbies still inexplicably don’t allow for changing tracks. And while I’m personally not too bothered by the game’s grindy nature, players are hitting a wall where there just isn’t much to do — not enough events to hold their attention beyond completing the Café, not enough ways to earn those handy roulette tickets and not enough cars to buy.
That last complaint might seem odd, given that GT7 has more than 430 cars. The issue is in the way the game restricts their availability. Newer high-value exotics require invitations to buy at Brand Central, the game’s showroom. The used car dealership, while fun in concept, presents far too few cars at any one given time and takes a week to cycle out inventory. The same is true — and even more starved for choice — with the Hagerty-branded legendary car dealership.
The presence of different showrooms is a cool quirk of Gran Turismo that hearkens back to the earliest titles, particularly GT4. But in those games, the used lots never left you wanting more. Clearly tweaks need to be made, and hopefully they will be in due course. Until then, we’re left booting up the game every day to see one, maybe two new cars cycled into the rotation on the regular, that are same for all players.
Thankfully, one industrious fan named ddm999 has decided to save everyone some time and built a slick website that displays the current used and legendary dealer stocks. It’s not automatic — the description says it’s updated manually — but it still offers some insight about how long cars have been on sale and how much longer they’re expected to be available for, which is good to know.
For example, I’ve been slowly grinding that one Fisherman’s Ranch race to afford the 3 million-credit 911 GT1 Strassenversion, but I’d assumed the car would be gone by the time I made enough money. According to the site, it’s estimated to stick around for four more days, so I just might be able to pull it off.
A blog posted the day of GT7’s release by developer Polyphony Digital promised new lobby features, time trials for the competitive Sport Mode and other additions, including cars, tracks and “engine parts to swap,” which I’m hoping means engines to swap. I know we’re all antsy for problems to get fixed — especially new problems that weren’t present on day one — but unfortunately GT7 is a new video game released in 2022. That means bugs, and bugs require patience.