Kazunori Yamauchi, creator and producer of Gran Turismo, reveals that the team at Polyphony Digital developed the seventh numbered installment to be fully playable in virtual reality.
Gran Turismo 7, the Polyphony Digital racing video game, will receive a free update on February 22 to add full compatibility with PlayStation VR2, the virtual reality device designed specifically for PlayStation 5 that will go on sale for a price of $599 .99. Related to this same issue, Kazunori Yamauchi, creator and producer of the saga, has revealed in a chat with GT Planet that the car title was developed with PS VR2 in mind, that is, from the beginning, the team thought of designing the video game to be playable from start to finish in virtual reality.
“Late in the development of Gran Turismo Sport, we started with Gran Turismo 7, and we intended to make the entire game playable on PS VR2. Gran Turismo 7 natively supports 4K/60, but when you set goals like that, naturally, you also end up being compatible with things like VR,” says Yamauchi.
Regarding the implementation of virtual reality in Gran Turismo 7, the creative assures that Polyphony found it “very easy” and that no aggressive cuts have been made to ensure an optimal gaming experience. ” Nothing has been cropped significantly. We focus a lot on frame rate [120 frames per second reprojected in the VR headset] and resolution when we do Gran Turismo, and I think it’s been a matter of timing Because the power of PS5 and the specs of PS VR2 have worked so well together.”
About foveated rendering in Gran Turismo 7 VR
Regarding foveated rendering, a method used to render images displayed on a VR screen, Yamauchi states that its integration into Gran Turismo 7 was done “by the book.” “You have the rendering resolution in the center of the view very high, as opposed to the peripheral zone around the focus of view, which is rendered at a slightly lower resolution.”
“It’s nothing special for Gran Turismo 7. Of course, we didn’t think it would come out that naturally. We thought the technique worked, that if you concentrated, you might notice the lower resolution on the outside, but it doesn’t. It’s something we discovered while we were developing all this”, concludes the creative.