Fans are extremely angry at the current state of Gran Turismo 7 two weeks after launch and have subsequently posted a stream of negative reviews on Metacritic. At the time of this writing, the user score for the game is in the red at 3.2/10 (screenshot posted below), but after checking the page over the past day, that will likely continue to drop.
Gran Turismo 7 review-bombed for numerous reasons
Upon pouring through the slew of Metacritic user reviews with abysmal scores, the most immediate concern is that Gran Turismo 7 is currently under maintenance due to an update. Rebecca Smith from our brother site PlayStationLifestyle has surmised that it’s because there is a problem with the recent patch update v1.07 which introduces a Broadcast mode. According to an official tweet for the Gran Turismo series posted on March 17 at 5:32am, there is an “issue” that has caused an extended server maintenance period.
Since then, however, there has been silence from Sony and developer Polyphony Digital. (Update: 30 hours after the servers dropped, it is now back online and CEO of Polyphony Digital Kazunori Yamauchi has responded to some of the concerns.) While the servers for Gran Turismo 7 are offline, the game unfortunately cannot be played because it requires a constant internet connection. Past numbered Gran Turismo titles had no such restriction, allowing players to race offline at their leisure, especially those who have no interest in the game’s multiplayer modes. Even after the patch is fixed, server hiccups will occur in the future. Many players who purchased this game in the last few days at full price find this situation unacceptable.
Due to an issue found in Update 1.07, we will be extending the Server Maintenance period. We will notify everyone as soon as possible when this is likely to be completed. We apologize for this inconvenience and ask for your patience while we work to resolve the issue. #GT7
— Gran Turismo (@thegranturismo) March 17, 2022
The other pressing issue of the patch is the nerfing of credit payouts for specific tracks that players were using to grind credits in order to afford legendary cars which cost millions of credits. Many of these legendary cars also rotate in and out of the game’s shop, already creating a FOMO effect which pushes players either to grind credits or to be pushed toward purchasing credits via mictrosanctions using real money.
While Gran Turismo fans are used to seeing microtransactions and grinding races for cars in Gran Turismo titles, Gran Turismo 7 takes it many steps farther. Many legendary cars which would only cost about $3-5 in Gran Turismo Sport through microtransactions now cost upwards of $30-40 in Gran Turismo 7. Also unlike past titles in the franchise, the game does not allow you to sell vehicles you have earned for credits. The in-game roulette spins also frequently land on the lowest amounts available.
In other news, Hogwarts Legacy will not be featuring microtransactions, and Sony says that it’s taking misconduct allegations from female employees “seriously” in the PlayStation sexism lawsuit.
