Update 1.29 for Gran Turismo 7 is coming out very soon, featuring a suite of exciting new vehicles, the classic Grand Valley racetrack, and a few other notable technical additions that may show what the developer, Polyphony Digital, has planned for the franchise in the future. Slowly but steadly, GT7 has been filling out its already impressive roster of cars and tracks, and while the new update continues this trend, there's more to it still.
It's worth remembering that Gran Turismo 7 got review bombed earlier in its lifecycle when the community realized that the game had a problematic microtransaction implementation on top of being particularly grindy. These concerns were alleviated rather quickly, however, allowing Polyphony Digital and the fans of the series to focus on content and technical improvements instead.
It just so happens that Gran Turismo 7's update 1.29 may be its most exciting piece of post-launch content yet, matched only by the game's previous announcement of PS VR2 support. Namely, while the update does feature Grand Valley and a curious selection of cars - from Citroën DS21 to Italdesign EXENEO variants - its most notable new feature is the introduction of GT Sophy. GT Sophy is a special AI that specializes in racing, and its development may eventually lead to far more interesting behavior in racing video games, as it's capable of self-learning, and it has already shown more than capable of beating professional sim racers in Gran Turismo.
Polyphony Digital and Sony developed GT Sophy in a joint venture, having announced its existence early in 2022. Developers had previously claimed that Sophy was capable of playing competitively without resorting to cheating, which has been accomplished by leveraging various deep-learning models. Sadly, this particular version of GT Sophy will only be available for a limited amount of time, exclusively via PlayStation 5: players will have an opportunity to race against the AI in the unique "Race Together" event which will be around until late March.
Naturally, seeing GT Sophy in action, at last, is the most exciting aspect of update 1.29, but the regular content that's being added to the game is a promising prospect too. Polyphony Digital recently revealed that it takes almost 300 days for a Gran Turismo 7 car to be made, which plainly shows just how much care and effort goes into each and every one of the game's vehicles.
Sadly, Kazunori Yamauchi recently stated that there are no plans for Gran Turismo 7 on PC after all, following a short bout of confusion after one of his quotes got mistranslated. With that in mind, the only way to experience GT7 is to check it out on one of the two contemporary PlayStation consoles, and with PS5 having access both to GT Sophy and to the impressive PS VR2 features, there's a clear winner in the equation.
Gran Turismo 7 is available now on PS4 and PS5.