Gran Turismo 7 is still offline after more than 24 hours of extended maintenance

Gran Turismo 7 has been effectively unplayable for the last 24 hours, as an issue with the most recent update has seen the planned server maintenance run much longer than usual. While you can still take on the Music Rally mode and custom Arcade races, the server downtime prevents any kind of single player progression being saved, as well as the online multiplayer being unavailable.

Due to an issue found in Update 1.07, we will be extending the Server Maintenance period. We will notify everyone as soon as possible when this is likely to be completed. We apologize for this inconvenience and ask for your patience while we work to resolve the issue. #GT7

— Gran Turismo (@thegranturismo) March 17, 2022

Polyphony Digital planned server maintenance to coincide with the latest Gran Turismo 7 update, version 1.07. However, due to “an issue” found with the update, the server maintenance has continued. There have been no updates on the matter for the past 21 hours, and it’s actually been 27 hours since the servers were taken offline at 6AM GMT. At least you can check the server status on the GT7 website, so you don’t waste time loading up the game to find out.

To be frank, apologies are not good enough for yet another completely asinine decision to take a single player experience and force online connectivity. This situation is exactly the kind of thing that makes such decisions controversial, far beyond the simple fact that whenever Sony and Polyphony Digital decide to turn off the game’s servers, it completely kills the game. That could be in 10 years, it could be in 20 years, but where you can load up Gran Turismo 4 or 5 and happily play on older consoles, GT7 will one day become a paperweight.

This isn’t the only thing that’s riling up would-be players of the game, as the inclusion of microtransactions and the weighting of payouts from races and events has also come in for criticism. The game does do a good job of feeding you a significant number of car unlocks through the single player, with car rewards for every race that the GT Café mission menu books send you to, but once you reach the end of that string of rewards, you’re then reliant on the Daily Workout and earning in-game cash to buy cars. Alternatively, you can throw money at some not-so-microtransactions to fill your digital wallet and buy high-end cars. The grind was already drawing some criticism, but dataminers have found that update 1.07 has reduced the payouts for certain high-paying events to dramatically reduce the effectiveness of some money-making events.

That’s in addition to other problems, like the inability to modify multiplayer lobbies after their creation, a feature that has been standard since Gran Turismo 5. You have to close the lobby and start one from scratch if you want to change track, length of race, car requirements, lobby privacy, or literally anything.

Outside of not being able to play the game in any meaningful way right now, Gran Turismo 7 is great! In our review, I wrote:

“Gran Turismo 7 takes everything that was excellent about GT Sport’s fantastic multiplayer, high fidelity cars and circuits and innovative Scapes mode, and builds up a more traditional GT experience around it. It’s got its own quirky new ideas which will likely be passing diversions to most, but at its core, this is the Gran Turismo you know and love. Broad and accessible, but with depth, nuance and competitive racing for those keen to find it.”

Source: Gran Turismo

More Gran Turismo 7 Guides from TheSixthAxis

• How to unlock Gran Turismo 7 multiplayer and Sport mode
• Gran Turismo 7 – What are Meeting Places and how to find them in the menus
• What GT7 tracks support night racing and 24h day-night cycle?
• What Gran Turismo 7 tracks have wet weather racing?
• How does Music Rally feature in Gran Turismo 7?
• Gran Turismo 7 – PS5 vs. PS4 performance comparison, and what about the ray tracing?