Gran Turismo Sport just came out this week, and the reviews have already rolled in. Apparently, it was a mixed bag of beans. There was a lot of reviews pointing out the game’s requirement to stay online that hinders players to fully experience the game. The game is sitting on an average score of 77 at OpenCritic, while its competitor from the green-side, Forza Motorsport 7, is sitting on an 84 average score.
The game’s director, Kazunori Yamauchi, explained why GT Mode wasn’t present in Gran Turismo Sport at the launch event in Modena, Italy.
“When people are talking about there’s no GT Mode anymore, that’s not quite true. In a narrow sense, the part that was the GT Mode in the past is now called Mission Challenge. It’s single player, there are various different types of races, from the very short to the very long, with different regulations, and you can tune up the cars that you purchased to participate in those races.”
Even if GT Mode was renamed to Mission Challenge, it didn’t still compare to what the previous installments had. Most of the players consider Mission Challenge as trials without any context at all. It literally lives to its mode name – Mission Challenge – just simply a challenge mode.
“Twenty years ago, when we did the first Gran Turismo, people knew what happens when you change an air filter or increased compression ratios do to your car. But the new users don’t have that knowledge anymore because they’re not as interested in the cars, so we’ve simplified [some areas of the game] so you can do the exact same thing you were doing in the past, but it’s more user-friendly for people just getting into cars.”
Yamauchi further explained why they removed the traditional Gran Tursimo single-player mode. And he was pointing out that the new users “don’t have that knowledge anymore” since they’re not into cars. While this can probably explain the removal of the classic career mode, it didn’t leave a good impression even if the intent was good.
Gran Turismo Sport is already available on PS4 with PSVR support. Expect our full review some time around next week as we’re still covering a lot of games to review.
