Gran Turismo 7 will require an Internet connection. As previously reported, you’ll need to have your console online in order to enjoy single player modes like the campaign and GT Café, as well as features like the livery editor. While it’s not yet clear which modes will be available offline, predecessor GT Sport limited gameplay to just the Arcade mode, which is obviously a fraction of the overall experience.
Asked directly about the reasoning behind this decision, series creator Kazunori Yamauchi explained that it’s to prevent cheating. He insinuated that the only way to ensure save files aren’t hacked or edited is by storing them on Polyphony Digital’s servers, and therefore you’ll need an Internet connection in order to make progress in offline modes.
It’s a decision that’s unlikely to be well-received by fans, especially considering a big emphasis of Gran Turismo 7 is on its single player content. To be fair, it looks like it’s going to be worth having your console hooked up: we were treated to an early look at the title this week, and reckon it’s shaping up to be the biggest and best Gran Turismo yet. You can read our impressions through here.
Comments 47
More than any other developer you can see they put great love and care into their game. If they don’t want people to sully the experience for themselves by cheating, then I respect that. It would be like a great chef creating a dish just for someone to smother it in ketchup they’ve smuggled in their bag; they may love ketchup, they may not be ruining anyone else’s meal, but a great chef will shove said customer out the door.
It’s not ideal but I can’t really blame them for it either.
Biggest thing holding me from purchasing. I want to know what can be played offline and how big is that at least.
This is the thing I don't like. Not that it would affect me as my console is always online, but I don't like the general idea of limiting a games accessibilty to stop players from ruining their own experience.
Of course, this game's online component will probably be a very important part of it but I think they should just focus on preventing cheating in that one.
Solo player games… who cares if someone cheats….
Seriously.
Can someone provide examples of save files being hacked or edited? Specifically PS files. Is this a wide spread issue that I'm just unaware of?
Online only games, seem no different than a cloud game. You pay full price for a product, that's at the whim of the publisher. Unless an offline mode is patched in.
What exactly are people cheating at - having a fast time posted on a leaderboard? Having access to cars they didn't rightfully acquire? Big deal - if they want to pay £70 for a game and do that 🤷♂️
Not affected personally but why should people with poor or no internet connection suffer?
Next Sony released dvd will stop people fast forwarding to the end to stop them spoiling it?
Seems like an easy solution, don't allow any stats or leader board entries offline but allow all gameplay offline too.
Look at all the outrage from people whose phones are sitting in their pockets right now, permanently connected to the interwebz...
Personally, I am fine with this. They want to protect the integrity of a game five years in the making. Let them.
The only way they want you to cheat is to spend real money buying cars instead of grinding in game currency.
Same mistake was made by Blizzard years ago (Diablo 3) and again someone is sawing its own branch... One can only laugh...
Bummer. Now I remember why I switched to Forza. Total shame.
More like pray for my internet connection lol. The game looks great though.
Well, that decides it then. I'm not buying.
Once servers go down you will be left with essentially an empty disc and no game.
Why does anyone care? More outrage for the sake of outrage, cmon it's not 1998 your ps5 is going to be connected to the internet at all times. I would imagine single player just needs to check intermittently for your save file and it wont matter too kuch if you dont have fast internet.
If thats a reason not to buy a game though, you have little to be bothering you
And what happens when the servers inevitably shut down? How do we access our save files then?
Since ny Internet company changed over to a new one, my connection has become pretty spotty and unreliable. So GT7 will be the first numbered GT game I will not purchase.
GT6 had a problem where people used an exploit to get 20m credits. Things like that is probably what they want to avoid.
I don't exactly play racing games that often, so some annoyance like this is enough to put me off considering it. Requiring an online connection is lame, as there'll be issues whenever there's server troubles or maintenance, or once they decide to shut down the servers.
@djlard You mean the same mistake Blizzard made with the Diablo 2 remaster? (Yeah, it has an online check-in requirement as well).
I don't buy games that have an online requirement because they will become paperweights when those servers are no longer supported. If I want a paper weight I will get rock from outside.
If developers do not want cheating in their games, then stop making them in the first place.
Deal with the cheats first then concentrate on making the games.
If not, then go and find another business to be in.
I wouldn’t have a problem with this if they announced that upon end-of-life they would patch it to allow offline play/saving. Maybe in future you’ll want to play the game but can’t because servers have been deactivated. I can pop in GT5 now and play it offline but will I be able to do this with 7 in 2034?. The fact you’ll not know how long it will be before the game is unplayable doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t see the point of incorporating the single player into the multiplayer, just keep it all separate and we could save offline.
Everyone says this is a deal breaker, but you're all going to buy the game anyway. People continually buy online/multiplayer games all the time.
@Nem and looking at forza servers shutting down, this could happen to gran turismo. Meaning the purchase turns useless. For single player games, please don't make any always online sony.
@Milktastrophe tell that to back4blood. Got bought by Tencent.
Didn't buy the game for a similar reason.
@RevGaming doesn't sound like the reason you didn't buy Back4blood was because it required an online connection then.
@Milktastrophe I just looked at GT sport arcade mode (the only thing that it's offline) and it's laughable. A lot of pop in asking you to go online. Cheating is not an excuse for this lol. Didn't monster hunter handle this? They could just ban them. There are cheaters online too lol. It's dumb.
I'm not buying GT7. I'll be buying forza horizon 5 to get my racing sim needs. Sorry sony, Xbox has been beating you in the racing genre for quite a while now.
and about Back4Blood, I couldn't play offline with Ai bots because the game had no progression offline. So yeah. I didn't buy it because it wasn't offline like left4dead. Idc if you don't care if the game becomes nothing of value when the servers go down.
I’m fine with this. My PlayStation is always online unless the power is out. Which in that case I can’t play it anyway.
I have two ISPs. One is Fixed Wireless and the other is a decent Hotspot modem. The hotspot is slow, but it’s fast enough for single player game uploads. So if my primary service modem decides to take a dump (I hardwire my PlayStation to my router for that one) then I can just connect it to the hotspot over wifi. Wouldn’t play multiplayer like that but it’ll be fine for the single player content which is what I plan on sinking my time into anyway.
With that said, I do think they should try to find a middle ground. Perhaps allow gamers to run two different campaigns. One that is online only, and the other is offline only. Two different save files. If you play the offline campaign you can’t participate in multiplayer modes or post to leaderboards.
@AdamNovice
I think every developer is terrified of what happened to Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast and GameCube.
Those versions of the game featured cross progression for offline and online game modes. Whatever you did offline carried over online and all save data was stored locally. Turns out there was a TON of exploits and cheats you could do on both versions utilizing PC as a bridge and some could be done even without a PC. You could create your own broken items, modify your characters stats to your liking, modify game memory (so you could unlock the highest difficulties without having to play through the game) and you could even steal items from teammates. It was completely out of control and destroyed the game’s community.
By comparison, cheating was far less prevalent in the Xbox and PC versions. Those had online only requirements for both offline and online play.
The sucky part is that without modding your Xbox and getting a patched version of the .iso, the Xbox version is no longer playable in any capacity. The PC version’s official servers were shut down way back around 2008, but there are custom fan servers for multiplayer and hosting save data so the game is still playable on PC.
The GameCube and Dreamcast versions are still perfectly playable offline. And that’s why the online only requirement with all data hosted on the server is a double edged sword. Yes it does help clamp down on the worst exploits, but it breaks the game once the servers are no longer cost effective to maintain.
@thefourfoldroot Well the chef should let the customer who paid money for his meal do what he wants with it
Seriously, we all have to face the brunt of always online just to play the game?
@KnightRider1982
To be fair, that’s basically impossible. There will always be exploits in games that store data locally.
Every developer saw what happened to Phantasy Star Online in real time on Dreamcast and GameCube. It was the most widely played console online game until games like SOCOM and Xbox Live titles launched. The game’s community was destroyed by exploits, and those two versions died premature deaths because the non-hackers all dropped the game and the player base collapsed.
@CrashLanded
And that’s the conundrum.
I’m in the middle on this. I do believe in doing everything to protect the integrity of the game’s community. On the other hand, I firmly believe that single player only content should be available offline.
Which is the central issue with cross progression between offline and online game modes. Like I said in my other post, every other online game developer watched Sonic Team and Sega wage an unwinnable war against cheaters in the GameCube and Dreamcast versions of Phantasy Star Online.
And in the end, they basically surrendered and shut down those two versions earlier than was necessary because the community was destroyed by exploits all going back to people modifying the game offline and then brining those save files online.
Frankly the solution is to completely separate the two game modes. But then that raises a problem for games like Gran Turismo, which is a live service game designed for five to 8 years of continuous content updates for both single player and multiplayer.
I have absolutely no interest in ever playing online against other people. I'm too old and I suck. I'm also never, ever going to buy anything with microtransactions. So for me, I just want to play the game offline only.
I thankfully now have good internet after years of not having access, but what happens when that goes down once in a while? I recently lost mine for more than a week due to an ice storm bringing down lines. We just can't play the game? How stupid. It seems like a bizarre way to punish absolutely everyone for exploits that a few people figured out for online play.
The easy answer is to make the online experience completely seperate from the career mode. Done.
On a related note, online gaming is absolutely ruining the whole experience, bit by bit, for those of us who only play games single player offline. Its breaking my heart.
@Unlucky13
Yeah it’s definitely an issue long term.
I play both single player and multiplayer games. And frankly I think everything would be better if they were kept entirely separate.
Well there goes my purchase to be honest. I'd rather them have an offline mode that I can't take online rather than depending on a server in my single player game.
"you’ll need an Internet connection in order to make progress in offline modes."
Then it's not really an offline mode is it? Remember when games came with cheat codes so you could have extra fun?
@TheRedComet
I mean... who cares? Just make offline and online different modes. Lots of games do that.
I know what I'm about to say won't happen for a long time BUT ...... What'll happen when they decide to do an EA and 'pull the plug' with the servers? Are we going to be left with an expensive drinks coaster or will we be able to actually play ALL the single player content offline?
@Nem
That would be the ideal solution. But Gran Turismo is a live service game technically. They have years of content planned out.
I think what they should do is offer the career campaign offline, but it make it a separate save file that is stored locally and can never be played online. That would satisfy everyone.
@FOXHOUND_MGS5
It depends. Polyphony could easily patch out the online requirement once the game reaches the end of its lifecycle. A few online only games that offered single player play have done this on PC.
I think what ends up happening to GT Sport will give us a heads up on what will happen to 7. While Sport doesn’t require an online connection just to play the game (arcade mode is available offline) the main meat of the game is online only. Looking at the age of the game it’s likely it’ll enter end of service about 6 or 7 years earlier than GT7.
Good decision , it keeps people who are constantly offended off the race track . if this was EA the pitchforks would be out by now !
@thedevilsjester D2 can be played offline without internet. (at least on Switch)
@djlard D2 can be played offline; but requires you to go online to "check-in" once every 30 days. Its not as terrible as an always online requirement; but its just as much of a paper weight when the servers are turned off.
@thedevilsjester hm... didn't know that...
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...