Nearly four years since its release, Gran Turismo 7 is on track to become the best-selling game in the franchise’s nearly 30-year history.
With over 100 million sales for the franchise now complete, a free Spec III update with new cars, changes to gameplay and two circuits was recently released.
But, perhaps even more significantly, GT7’s first optional DLC is available, the Power Pack – and, in a typically Polyphony Digital way, it’s like nothing else you’ve ever experienced…
Getting started
First, the basics: The Power Pack, is a single-player add-on for the main game priced at £24.99 / $29.99 / €29.99.
As it uses the advanced AI agent, Gran Turismo Sophy, to power your rivals (more on that soon), this is only available for those with a PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Pro, skipping the PS4.
As you boot into the game’s main menu, you will see a large ship, and it’s here where you access the adrenaline-filled, race-face-enabled area. Why is it a ship? No idea, questions on a postcard addressed to Kazunori Yamauchi, please.
This is for the focused. The dedicated racers. Or as Sony put it, “racing purists”. Right from the off, its intentions are clear.
There are 50 initial races in pre-set car combinations, laid out on a schematic structure seemingly inspired by the London Tube map.
There are six coloured routes, each with a dedicated vehicle theme. So, blue is American muscle, orange is Japanese cars from the 1990s and yellow is historic rally and race cars.
The aim isn’t to buy cars and parts, then build up a garage collection, unlike the regular series format. Rather, you work your way through curated challenges, aiming for the endorphin rush delivered by quite literally unlocking the next race.
The car’s the star
This is an elephant in the room for fans of Gran Turismo games of yore.
There will likely be a cohort of individuals who cannot get past Gran Turismo 4. For them, that is the zenith of this series, never to be surpassed.
However, the GT series has regularly innovated. Licence tests, weird concept cars, Sport Mode, Scapes, the moon, shuffle races, being able to connect a printer…
Some missed, but most hit. There’s a continual theme of thinking outside the box.
Power Pack is another slice of Polyphony Digital esoterica, possibly only appealing to those who are willing to commit.
But, for those that do, this is a cohesive experience that delivers, yet again, a forward-looking way of virtually racing.
Each event allows you to select from just three pre-selected cars, acting as an allegory for the difficulty level. In a typically charming way, no chilli pepper is easy, one chilli pepper is medium and two chilli peppers is sweltering.
And while GT Sophy, a learning agent created in collaboration with Sony AI that redefines computer-controlled racing, could be seen as the main draw, the real stars are these vehicles.
No, you can’t enter the event with your own GT7 car collection. But the machines here are finely crafted. The base models may be recognisable, but we don’t think we can create these setups yourself in-game.
These are more than a quick tune-up, but rather a thorough re-development, with crackling overrun, sharp throttle responses and pin-sharp handling.
The Custom Mach Forty is an unruly beast, usually, but the Power Pack version is a joy to drive, for example.
This is the creation team having fun, let off the leash to create outlandish grids, all stickered up, bewinged and pumped full of attitude.
It’s not just the cars you will drive, but the artfully conceived grids you’ll be racing within that are alluring. Rally-spec Volkswagen Beetles that shouldn’t work but do, heavily pumped up Fiat Pandas and motorsport modified Jaguar XJ220s, all respendent in fictional, but period-appropriate, liveries.
It’s a shame, then, that we can’t request these grids as dedicated classes to use elsewhere in the game, such as multiplayer lobbies.
You can at least earn six of these creations for use in any game mode.
On track
You will drive these wonderfully varied concoctions in races between three and 14 laps, generally.
That means asphalt, dirt and snow, dry or wet – although, for the most part, without the need for strategy. Instead, each event is a flat-out sprint against GT Sophy.
Previously seen in a testing phase, at Gran Turismo World Series events and then in-game, Sophy could only be used in custom races until now.
To this point, races against this agent have been relatively easy, but select a two-chilli car, and it’s like racing against Michael Schumacher at his most metronomic.
We were able to win the first race in each path on this difficulty, but after that point can be seriously challenging.
This AI system is unlike anything else in sim racing or driving games – there are times when it is truly a step forward for the whole genre, as it realises you’re overtaking on the inside, deliberately runs wide, and gets you on the cutback at corner exit.
Its pace was never questioned, but the racecraft has been improved once again in this 3.0 iteration.
Infallible though? No, not quite, it does still have some strange tendencies if you look hard enough. If one car comes out of pitlane, and another is entering the first corner, they can crash into each other, and in fact, Sophy is generally a bit odd with collisions.
On rare occasions, it can brake thinking there will be a crash when it’s a mild rub, and other times wildly overreact.
At Barcelona Turn 5 or into Daytona’s first Horeshoe hairpin, it always takes a defensive line, even if no one else is around.
Sophy is, at times, like racing in a Sport Mode-ranked race, and the dramatic pre-race intro, showcasing the full grid, builds the tension – if only this could be skipped once you’ve seen it a few times.
You need to be clipping every apex, timing every braking zone with more accuracy than a Japanese train timetable and avoid mistakes at all costs.
If you’d like to finish on the podium of a two-chilli race, qualifying is essential – practice, though, that’s mostly skipped.
There are times, too, when the racing can be surprisingly unbalanced.
Winning every race in the yellow path on the max difficulty was relatively straightforward, but other paths proved to be much more of a challenge. Often, we found that a race could boil down to just you and one superior AI rival, dominating the track and lapping competitors, way ahead of the field.
Also, so often we are left for dead by our competitors on the start line, and as manual starts are permanently switched off, you feel powerless – some races use rolling starts to minimise this effect.
Lower things to one-chilli (more chilli talk than a Jamie Oliver cookbook here, sorry), however, and the field seems to be more balanced, whereas no-chilli should be winnable for most drivers at a canter.
Top secret
Acting as a counterweight to the intense top-level races is a forgiving progression system.
Completing a race unlocks the next event. You also receive stars after each, based on your position. The number of total stars you earn unlocks prizes and bonus events. 20 stars is the max score for a race, for finishing first.
If you finished fifth the first time, for example, and you win a second time, you then earn the remaining star balance.
Crucially, you don’t need to win an event to unlock the next main one on a path – any finishing position will do. It makes progression very straightforward, and much like the real world, if a sixth-place finish is all you can do, the racing season continues.
Earning these stars is how you unlock the modified Power Pack cars for your in-game garage, simple cash payouts and roulette tickets, too. Sooo many roulette tickets.
Now, it’s time for a mild spoiler warning: There are secret events…
Finish each race in a path, and a mystery endurance race will appear adjacent to that line. These are all endurance events, such as six hours around Fuji Speedway, eight hours at Spa, and then 24 hours at Le Mans and the Nürburgring.
There is no B-Spec mode as far as we can tell, so you’ll be driving the full distance yourself, like prior series instalments.
However, there is a strange way of saving your progress mid-race. There’s no on-screen option. Instead, simply pause at any point, long-press the PS button, and close the game, as risky as it seems.
Then, when you next start the title, you can resume from where you left off – you can save multiple endurance races at once, and once your progress is saved, you can use any other game mode until you decide to go back.
Slightly strangely, however, upon the resumption, no matter the gaps pre-save, it lines up the grid for a rolling start again, with new tyres but used fuel. Quaint.
It may not be for everyone, but it is for me
Which is the Power Pack in a nutshell, really. It’s like nothing else, with its distinct menu music, hardcore races, aggressive opponents and some of the most satisfyingly modified cars in Gran Turismo history.
At times, it feels like a completely separate game, in a way that perhaps only Polyphony can deliver, zigging while others zag.
In our mind, there are now three tiers of GT on PS5:
- The free My First Gran Turismo for beginners
- Gran Turismo 7 for the mass market
- Power Pack for the motorsport aficionado
In many ways, trying to achieve maximum chilli completion reminds us of GT Sport’s Lewis Hamilton add-on, where claiming Diamond times was nigh on impossible – but, for those who were after a stiffer challenge, it was gratifying.
Unlike that particular DLC, however, the Power Pack is more engaging and characterful. It may not be for everyone, purposefully by design, but we found that it suited us.
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