Game: Gran Turismo Sport
Platform: PS4
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Release Date: 17/10/2017
Racing games have left a lot to be desired on PSVR so far, but Gran Turismo Sport is showing some strong potential. Following our Gran Turismo Sport first look, we sampled the game in virtual reality using the PSVR headset and came away suitably impressed. Put simply, Gran Turismo Sport looks spellbinding in VR.
Sadly, only a very limited portion of Gran Turismo Sport is playable in VR. Everything is restricted to the game's VR tour mode, which only lets you race against one car. The benefit, however, is that this has allowed Polyphony Digital to increase the visual fidelity. The resulting image is still blurry, but everything looks significantly sharper than DriveClub VR and Dirt Rally VR, and the car interiors are jaw-droppingly detailed. Driving physics don't appear to have been as simplified as they were in DiRT Rally VR, either.
The level of visual polish probably shouldn't be surprising since Gran Turismo Sport is a first-party Sony game, but it's still an impressive achievement considering the hardware limitations of the PlayStation 4. Game footage was captured using a standard PS4, but the PS4 Pro is said to further improve the visuals.
A soothing showroom mode also lets you marvel at the meticulously detailed car models in VR, but you can't open the doors and bonnet like you can in Forzavista, sadly. It shows a lot of future potential – we can imagine walking around a virtual garage viewing all the cars we own in a future Gran Turismo game when the hardware inevitably evolves.