Gran Turismo 7 review – the ultimate racing game is fresh and comfortingly familiar

PlayStation 4/5; Polyphony Digital/Sony
A jaw-droppingly beautiful sim with an obsessive attention to detail that ensures the franchise's penchant for charming eccentricity is alive and well

At first glance, Gran Turismo 7 offers much the same experience as the original game did back in 1997: an idiosyncratically clean aesthetic, a focus on authentic handling and impossibly shiny cars that put any carwash to shame. There have been some tweaks under the hood, as you would expect, and one major alteration that will probably divide fans, but this 25-year-old motor is very much still running.

One thing that hasn't changed is Sony-owned developer Polyphony Digital's synergistic mastery of PlayStation hardware. Gran Turismo has always been trotted out to demonstrate the true graphical potential of Sony's consoles, and Gran Turismo 7 slips into its traditional role of technical showcase with ease on PlayStation 5. While it remains compatible with the PlayStation 4, on the newer machine this is a jaw-slackeningly beautiful game. Each vehicle is fettled in obsessive detail, down to the exact arrangement of reflective elements in an individual car's headlights.