Polyphony Digital just released a new update for Gran Turismo 7, and in a surprizing turn of events this late in the game's life cycle, pushed a complete overhaul of physics.
Before diving into the details of the new physics and how they feel on track, let's talk about the other main aspects from the 1.71 update. The obvious one, 4 new cars are making their way into the roster : the Caterham Seven Superlight R500, Hyundai IONIQ 6 N, 1997 Toyota Chaser Tourer V and Mark II Tourer V. A bunch of new engine swaps are also available - including a 660cc engine swap into the Caterham, bringing it close to the specs of the 170.
On the side of racing rules, shortcut penalties detection has been adjusted, and a new setting for mechanical damage has been made available for lobbies : Championship Damage, which is based on Light damages, but triggers on lighter impacts. The auto-repair is also now dependent on the force of the impact itself, and can take much longer in extreme scenarios.
The new physics
The physics engine has received a significant overhaul in this update, with changes made to the tyre model, suspension model, assists and throttle response. The details are available in the official patch notes, linked at the end of this article, but let's focus on how those changes feel.
The first noticeable thing is how much effect trail braking and coasting into corners help the front end bite, making cars more reactive on entries than before. Combine this with a slightly reduced lateral grip, but with more progressivity, it feels like more slip angle is available, and needs to be exploited to go fast. Traction however has increased again, making cars extremely forgiving on throttle and allowing you to plant your foot down on corner exits without thinking twice about it. While entries feel a bit more alive, the opposite happens on exits due to that excess of traction, which honestly prevents us from even being able to test the changes that have been made to traction control.
When it comes to drifting, holding and controlling a slide is now easier, due to the tyres being more progressive, and the new throttle mapping which seems to have a more progressive curve now. However, while the new suspension modelling favors front end bite in racing scenarios, it makes drift transitions very snappy now, making it difficult to chain drifts and change direction without losing the car.
Tyre warming is now a bit slower, and require 3 to 4 laps of regular racing to reach optimal temperatures (the temperature ramp up on the 911 GT3 R is very similar as in iRacing in terms of raw values). They don't overheat as easily as before either, and since the game makes you start on not completely cold tyres, you don't really notice a balance change during the initial heat cycle. This also translates into less tyre wear accross the board, although your ability to take fast corners such as Eau Rouge flat out gets affected a bit earlier in the tyre's life cycle now.
Overall, these new physics reward a more aggressive and less refined driving style. It still feels very much like Gran Turismo, with an overall balance towards understeer, and cars not spinning out for aggressive entries with too much brakes, though the new default setups on cars might be part of that explanation. But a slight reduction in traction rather than an increase would probably have contributed to a more engaging driving experience.
Force feedback has also been tweaked in conjunction with the new physics, and overall feels more damped now, but audio effects feel slightly more proeminent. Compared to my previous settings, I have reduced dampening on the base, slightly reduced vibration strength in game parameters, and added 1 level of force in controller settings, and I encourage everyone to play with these parameters. Fanatec users will now benefit from FullForce support (after a firmware update on their equipment), so they should feel the most drastic changes here.
For all details about this update, read the full patch notes here.