Why have Gran Turismo 7’s updates gone mysteriously quiet?

Routine is comforting. Amidst the maelstrom of modern life, Gran Turismo 7 players grew accustomed to a soothing monthly cadence whereby Polyphony Digital would tease an upcoming monthly update by releasing some moody silhouettes of vehicles soon to appear in the game, and then, a few days later, that update would arrive. That pattern has abruptly broken this month though.

GT7’s monthly updates tend to arrive in the final week of the month – right around the time we’re writing this – but with no activity from series creator Kaz Yamauchi’s X feed teasing any June content, players are speculating there may not be an update this month.

There’s a probable explanation. The first live event of Gran Turismo 7’s esports tournament, the 2024 GT World Series, is taking place in Montreal on 6 July.

The timing of that event means it’s likely that Polyphony is simply holding onto the newest update so that it can coincide with the Montreal event.

Bear with us while we start pinning the red twine to our conspiracy theorist’s corkboard, but the location of that live event is also significant. Back in 2023 data miners uncovered what appeared to be references to Montreal’s Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve within GT7’s code. That led some to surmise the track would be making an appearance in the game.

Polyphony has never addressed those data miners’ conclusions, but if the Montreal circuit was to be added to the game, the weekend of a live esports event happening at that very location would be a rather fortuitous time to do it.

That’s one explanation. Another is simply that Polyphony has adjusted its update schedules to allow for different kinds of content drops.

Fortunately we don’t have to sit on our hands pondering all this for too long – all will become clearer after that opening round of the GT World Series, where the fastest drivers from a series of online qualifiers will meet face-to-face to compete live in front of an audience.