While Polyphony Digital have been keeping relatively quiet about “Gran Turismo 7” and have been careful about revealing any specific details for the upcoming title, they’re still reassuring their fans that the game is going to be quite impressive. Eric Fishback, who’s the current Community Manager for the studio, expressed confidence that the game is going to be the most successful installment in the franchise to this day, and will make full use of the modern hardware in the PlayStation 4 to bring the gameplay experience into a new era.
He went on to say that right now, the development team have everything they’ve ever wanted in terms of hardware thanks to the PlayStation 4, and they’re trying to utilize that to its full potential. However, the studio has apparently needed to increase its workforce, as the current size of the development staff has proven insufficient for their needs.
Because of this, the studio has hired extra people to work on the game in order to avoid any delays. The last thing they would want right now is to give fans any reason for disappointment about “Gran Turismo 7”, as trust in the franchise was already shaken up a bit with the release of its sixth installment. Polyphony should do everything they can to ensure that this release goes off flawlessly if they want to avoid getting into a situation where nobody even wants to see another sequel.
When can we expect to see the game? No official release date has been set, but looking at the kinds of developers that were recently hired by the studio, some conclusions can be drawn. If Polyphony are hiring software engineers and tool developers, plus several types of artists, this is a good indication that the game isn’t very close to a finished state yet. Typically, the set of tools that will be used in the development process has to be finalized at an early stage, so the production of “Gran Turismo 7” may not even be that far ahead at all.
On the other hand, as long as Polyphony have properly planned their time and know what they’re doing with their schedule, this shouldn’t be a cause for worrying. The studio doesn’t have to face some of the issues that were plaguing their development of “Gran Turismo 6” this time, as for example they don’t have to deal with releasing the game on multiple platforms simultaneously. This time, they’re only developing on the PlayStation 4, and they not only have a unified platform for the game’s development, but it’s a very solid one too, so we could potentially see lots of exciting things in the new title.