Gran Turismo 7 was always designed with VR support in mind, confirms Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi in a new interview.
Revealed during CES 2023, Gran Turismo 7 arrives later this month as a PSVR 2 launch game, and we’re slowly learning more about the racing sim’s upcoming VR update. Alongside some brief gameplay footage during a preview last week, Yamauchi was questioned about how Gran Turismo 7 came to support PSVR 2 in a GTPlanet interview. According to Yamauchi, VR support was planned from the very beginning.
At the end of developing GT Sport, we started on GT7 and our intent was that we would make the entire game playable in PSVR 2. GT7 natively supports 4K/60, but when you set targets like that you naturally also end up supporting things like VR as well… This is just what I would assume, but I think a lot of titles would probably have a pretty hard time adjusting themselves to PSVR 2 but for us, it was very easy.
Detailing the game’s performance in PSVR 2 further, Yamauchi confirms Gran Turismo 7’s runs at a reprojected 120 frames-per-second and utilizes eye tracking for foveated rendering:
That’s not anything special for GT7. It’s kind of a textbook application of that feature. Of course we didn’t actually think it would come out this natural. We thought, the technique really works, we thought maybe that if you really kind of focused, you might be able to notice the lesser resolution around the outside, but you really can’t. That’s something we discovered while working on developing all of this.
Gran Turismo 7 on PSVR 2 was widely expected after Gran Turismo Sport supported PSVR, but that was limited to one-on-one races against an AI opponent and time trials. Sony confirms GT7’s VR mode covers the full experience (excluding split-screen multiplayer), and you can also view all 450+ cars through a VR Showroom, which is accessed through the Garage.
Gran Turismo 7 arrives on PSVR 2 on February 22, 2023 as a free update for existing PS5 owners.
