Does Gran Turismo 7 have damage?

Leading up to the release of Gran Turismo 7, Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori “Kaz” Yamauchi stated that the damage models in GT7 would be basically the same as that in Gran Turismo Sport, albeit with some minor improvements. Realizing that fans want to know exactly what that means, we have conducted some extremely dangerous, highly unscientific experiments in order to establish just how damaged GT7 cars can get, and how realistic the collisions in GT7 are.

First, we drove our 1998 Honda Integra Type R the wrong way around Tsukuba Circuit and steered it head on into several of our opponents. There was no debris, but there was a brief cloud of smoke and a bumping sound. The cars awkwardly bounced off each other like fairground bumper cars, and not at all like real cars. After a few more head-on crashes, a trail of smoke emerged from the hood of our car, but then abruptly stopped after about 10 seconds. The trail of smoke was mysteriously absent from the race replay. You can see the result of our repeated head-on collisions in the featured image at the top of this guide: some of the paint on the front bumper chipped off. The performance of the car was not affected at all.

Next, we took our 2017 Suzuki Swift Sport for a spin on Suzuka Circuit, this time going the right way around the track, but aggressively side-swiping each of our opponents as we overtook them. Again, the collisions felt bumper-car-like, and many of them made no sound at all. We had to hit them really hard to cause any damage to our car, but we did manage to cause a slight dent, as well as the usual paint chipping.

Related: All car brands and designers featured in Gran Turismo 7

One interesting thing we spotted in the process of getting screenshots for this guide was that you can adjust Condition Settings in GT7’s Photo Mode. The four Condition Settings are Dust, Oil Stains, Scratches and Dents, and Headlight Cracks. If you look really closely at the featured image again, you can see that there are cracks in both the headlights, but the bulbs are still working.

In conclusion, Gran Turismo 7 does have damage, but it’s a long way short of realistic, is limited to minor cosmetic effects, and does not affect the performance of your car.