The Gran Turismo series has long been a favorite of sim-racing enthusiasts, and today marks a special milestone for the franchise. Gran Turismo: The Real Driving Simulator was released on PlayStation in Japan on December 23, 1997, meaning that the series has officially crossed the quarter-century mark. To celebrate 25 years of Gran Turismo, PlayStation released a special blog post and a retrospective video.
The blog post comes by way of Kazunori Yamauchi, creator and producer of the franchise and CEO of Polyphony Digital. In the post, Yamauchi recounts how the series came to be, with his original plans for the series stretching as far back as 1992.
“I was fascinated by real time 3D graphics that many had been waiting for, and created and presented plans for all kinds of video games, not just limited to race games but RPGs, adventure games, action games, puzzle games, and more,” he wrote. “As a result, Gran Turismo took a more fantasy race game format in the ‘Motor Toon Grand Prix,’ becoming one of the first 1st party titles for PlayStation, but if a plan for something other than a racing game had been the one that was approved, there is a good chance that I might have been making a title other than Gran Turismo today. Thereafter the Gran Turismo project started from gathering a team of two part time artists and three engineers.”
You can read the full blog post here. As part of the celebration, PlayStation and Polyphony Digital also released a four-and-a-half minute retrospective video recalling each era of the Gran Turismo franchise. The video is set to “Day to Live” by Alusville, which is featured on the Gran Turismo 6 soundtrack. You can see that video below.
The most recent entry in the Gran Turismo franchise is Gran Turismo 7, which launched on March 4, 2022. Though the game featured various frustrating elements to its economy and structure, the core racing gameplay maintained the rock-solid pedigree of the long-running franchise, causing the game to earn a 8.75 out of 10 in our review. In fact, Gran Turismo has often fared well in the eyes of critics, with most of the games earning high marks from Game Informer.
Check out our historical review scores from the franchise below.
- Gran Turismo – 9.5 out of 10
- Gran Turismo 2 – 9.5 out of 10
- Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec – 9 out of 10
- Gran Turismo 4 – 9.25 out of 10
- Gran Turismo 5: Prologue – 7.75 out of 10
- Gran Turismo (PSP) – 7 out of 10
- Gran Turismo 5 – 9 out of 10
- Gran Turismo 6 – 8 out of 10
- Gran Turismo 7 – 8.75 out of 10
Which Gran Turismo game was your favorite? Did that video stir up any long-dormant memories? Where would you like to see the series go from here? Let us know in the comments section!
