‘Gran Turismo 7’ Will Have Real-Time Ray-Tracing, Likely PlayStation 5 Bound

There were a number of fans that were let down with last year’s release of Gran Turismo Sport…and that includes us. The game just didn’t live up to the standard that Polyphony Digital has previously set with its racing series, with far too many features blocked behind an online connection. But it sounds like the developer is trying to make amends with its next entry, Gran Turismo 7.

The team is reportedly working on a new engine for the sequel that will make use of its own real-time ray-tracing engine. For those that unfamiliar with ray-tracing, it’s technology that’s been utilized with a number of high-end games on PC, but not seen that much on the console front, if at all.

But during the recent SIGGRAPH 2018 event in Asia, the developer confirmed that it was hard at work on creating this engine to make the game’s visuals look somehow even better than Sport, “exploring possibilities” when it comes to realism.

The team even demonstrated a first look at this engine in the video below, giving you an idea of just how much of a visual edge it’s pushing for. The video, initially posted by WCCFTech, is off-screen, so it may not look as sharp as it did in person. But it still shows progress.

But you’ll need to be patience, as you probably shouldn’t expect Gran Turismo 7 to make its debut anytime soon. In fact, with the implementation of its new engine, there’s a pretty good chance we won’t even see it during this generation. Polyphony is likely to save it for the PlayStation 5, with a possible first peek coming sometime later next year, when Sony could be hosting a showcase for the forthcoming console.

Polyphony does need to make a turnaround from the failures of Sport, and this looks to be a step in the right direction. The car models in the video are remarkable thus far, though this is merely a glimpse of what the real-time ray-tracing engine will have. Hopefully sometime over the next year, we’ll see some gameplay that will really pop off the screen.

We’ll keep you informed as the game makes progress. For now, Gran Turismo 5 will likely release sometime in 2020 for PlayStation 5, though you never know…