Gran Turismo 7 Spec III Update is Coming December 4, Preload Now Available

After what feels like the longest two months in the game’s life to date, Gran Turismo 7’s Spec III update is now available as a preload ahead of being unlocked on December 4.

It’s only the second time we’ve seen a preload available for a Gran Turismo 7 update, with the previous being the 1.54 update last November that brought PS5 Pro enhancements. That was a 32GB monster, while Spec III is a comparatively slim 15GB on PS5 and a daintier 9GB on PS4 — but still comfortably on the podium of biggest updates.

The December 4 date is one we’ve been expecting for a good long while, but has now been confirmed both by Kazunori Yamauchi and other official game channels by way of the usual — if a couple of hours earlier — pre-update announcements.

With 15GB of announcements to get through, there’s quite a lot going on — even if we do know a good deal about a lot of the content already — so let’s dig in.

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: New Tracks

We’ve known for quite some time not only that Spec III will include two brand-new circuits, but also what those tracks are: Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve and Yas Marina. Both are famous F1 venues, and verging on the notorious for wholly different reasons.

Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve — built on an artificial island in Montreal’s Saint Lawrence River, originally created for Expo ’67 — is something of an old-school track that runs on a layout partly comprising what used to be roads. It’s famed for its final chicane, the exit of which (also being Turn 13) is known as “The Wall of Champions” after it claimed three cars, all driven by F1 world champions, in one race in 1999. And Ricardo Zonta.

Meanwhile Yas Marina is a modern-day, purpose-built arena designed by famed F1 architect Hermann Tilke. It’s about to stage its 17th grand prix, a championship three-way decider, but is perhaps better known for the seedy — and quotable — events around the 2021 finale.

The Canadian circuit is limited to a single layout in the real world, but Yas Marina has multiple options that even include a rallycross course. However it looks like only the current grand prix course will be available in GT7, with no additional variations listed in the announcement.

We’re expecting both tracks to support new Circuit Experience events, and we bet one of them will use the new Ferrari 296 GT3, giving a bit of quick cash early on if you want to pick up all the new cars. Speaking of which…

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: New Cars

After several teasers and reveals across the last ten weeks, we already knew six of the eight new cars coming to the game in the Spec III update. Studio chief Kazunori Yamauchi’s usual silhouette hint yesterday — this time using cars literally under covers instead of heavy shadow — gave very firm clues as to the other two, but only now do we have proper specification information for all eight.

They are as follows:

• Ferrari 296 GT3 ’22

• Ferrari 296 GTB ’22

• FIAT Panda 30 CL ’85

• Gran Turismo 3500-B

• Mine’s BNR34 GT-R N1 Base

• Mitsubishi FTO GP Version R ’97

• Polestar 5 Performance ’26

• Renault Espace F1 ’95

While the Panda hadn’t been officially revealed previously, it’s not exactly a surprise. The car was seen on-screen in a PD studio visit by Giorgetto Giugiaro — its designer — and every car we’ve been allowed to see in a similar manner has appeared in the relevant game only a few months later on.

We now have confirmation that it is, as we expected, a first-generation model before the major refresh in 1986. Not only that, we also now know it sports the 29hp (the “30” of the name relating to quasi-metric power units), two-cylinder, 652cc engine from the FIAT 126. Interestingly, this Panda would be the only one that meets current Kei car specifications — although it would be too big under the regulations when it launched in 1985.

Our other unknown — at least until the silhouettes — was the Ferrari 296, with this announcement confirming it’s the coupe-bodied GTB rather than the GTS convertible. By adding the road car in this update, PD is continuing a trend of new GT3 cars coming alongside or after their road car siblings.

There was one final unknown, although only in terms of specification. The F3500-B, shown in the original reveal, is now confirmed to be a V8-powered tribute to 90s’ F1 cars, joining the V12 F3500-A.

Interestingly there’s also six “new” cars in the Power Pack DLC, also launching tomorrow, though these appear to be pre-tuned variants of existing road cars and will likely not count as new entries in the Car Collection.

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: Power Pack DLC

While not part of the free update itself, Spec III will add the ability to buy and participate in the new Power Pack DLC — for players on PlayStation 5 consoles only.

Once you’ve passed Menu Book 9 (Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade), you’ll see a sailing ship moored at the woefully undersized jetty in the lower-left corner of the map with the Power Pack icon. Clicking on this will take you to a purchase page for the Power Pack DLC — coming in at $29.99/€29.99/£24.99 — or accessing the events if you’ve already bought it.

We’re assuming that the icon will also be present on the PS4 version, but you won’t be able to access it as it taunts you to upgrade your device…

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: New Races & Events

As you might expect, there’s a slew of new things to do coming in Spec III. In terms of new races it’s perhaps not quite as many as we’d been expecting given the two-month gap between updates and the much larger number in Spec II, but there are more collection-based “Extra Menu” books than in any previous update.

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: New Extra Menu Books

In fact four new Extra Menu Books come along at once, requiring you to score a dozen vehicles to meet the requirements and pick up the — as-yet unspecified — rewards. Each requires a Collector Level above the previous cap to unlock.

The first, Alfa Romeo Legends, requires you to own the Alfa Romeo 155 Touring Car, Giulia TZ2, and 2900B from the Legends Cars dealer. Legendary Road Racers will also need a trip to the Legends dealer, requiring the Ferrari 500 Mondial, Porsche 550 Spyder, and — again — the Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2.

It’s largely modern fare in the other two books, with the three generations of Audi TT in a book of the same name and three Mazdas — MX-5, CX-30, and RX-Vision concept — in the other.

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: New Races

A total of seven new events will be added, unsurprisingly with most being at the two new circuits. Race lengths and rewards are not yet known and will be revealed with the update.

That’ll see Yas Marina host rounds of the Ferrari Circuit Challenge, World Touring Car 800, and Gr.1 Prototype Series, while Circuit de Gilles-Villeneuve gains stages of the Nissan GT-R Cup and Super Formula series.

The exceptions are a new round of the European Sunday Cup 400 at the Goodwood Motor Circuit, and Blue Moon Bay Speedway Infield A staging a round of the Japanese FF Challenge.

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: Weekly Challenge and Seasonal Menu

Changes to time-limited single-player content are also coming, with an update to how Weekly Challenges operate and the mystery of the new “Seasonal Menu” solved.

The former looks like it’s going to be a collection task based on each update, judging by its initial appearance. Similar to an Extra Menu, the first instance requires you to pick up three specific vehicles that are all part of the Spec III update, giving you a Six-Star Roulette ticket as a reward. However, you only have a little over three weeks to accomplish this.

If nothing else, this rather suggests that Polyphony Digital is planning many more free updates — and we are still due to receive at least two new vehicles from Xiaomi and Yangwang in GT7 — in order that this entirely new feature isn’t a one-and-done affair.

Meanwhile the Weekly Challenges are getting a switch-up from the existing format. It does look like it’ll continue to be a five-event challenge, requiring you to perform the tasks within a seven-day period, but with new event types and not just races.

These will include new Time Trial and Mission events, with at least the first set as presented being new challenges created just for the mode and not drawing from the current Circuit Experience/Mission events. Rewards look set to remain at the same levels as now, but they’re likely to take slightly less time than before.

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: Data Logger

We’ve previously written at length about the Data Logger feature, and there’s nothing in the latest announcement that hasn’t been previously confirmed about how this operates.

One aspect we’ll note here is that it appears that online multiplayer races won’t be available for analysis in this mode — which isn’t entirely surprising, as quite a bit of the telemetry required as recorded by your console is best-guess and imprecise — but otherwise you’ll be able to compare any two laps from any two replay saves in any two cars at the same track.

That includes Online Time Trial events, so the forthcoming Polestar 5 challenge — which offers a VIP trip to the Gran Turismo World Series Final in Fukuoka — could be an interesting one as top players analyze each other’s data!

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: Collector Level & Unlimited Invitations

The update will also bring an uplift to the Collector Level cap, raising it from the current 50 to — as we’d calculated from other information — a new upper limit of 70.

We don’t yet know if the previous calculation for the points required will hold through the new levels, with the image above hinting that even if it’s not exactly the same it’ll be close, but you’re going to need a car collection worth around 110 million credits to reach the new cap.

Previously it was teased that new Collector Levels would come with a new “unlimited” Invitation system, and that’s now been confirmed in the latest announcement. It looks as though you’ll still be able to get expiring Invitations as rewards from tickets (although we hope once you’ve got an unlimited one, these will be removed from possibilities…), but as you progress from 50-70 you’ll gain permanent invitations for the relevant brands: Aston Martin, Bugatti, Citroen, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani and Porsche.

As that only encompasses seven of the 20 new levels, we’d imagine there’s other unlockables — although it may only be the case that future Extra and Bonus Menu Books will require higher levels, as with the four in this update.

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: New Intro

Like Spec II, Spec III will introduce a new cinematic intro for Gran Turismo 7. These movies are usually treats to watch (once, at least), and the preview images for this one shows off some of the new content — cars, tracks, and races — introduced over the last two years.

Fans may recall that Spec II’s opening movie completely replaced the original, with no way to view the first one in-game any more. This is likely to be the case again, so if you’re a fan of the Spec II intro now’s the time to give it one last look. An option to view all three would be a nice thing to add, we reckon…

Gran Turismo 7 Spec III: Other Changes

There’s some other changes coming too, some of which have been announced, some of which you’d be expecting, and a couple that are still mysteries.

We’ll be getting four new sets of Scapes curations, seemingly comprising three all-new locations — including Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve and Yas Marina — as well as a set based on existing spots but with an additional allowance for extra light sources.

Dunlop tires will also be making their debut here. The Dunlop-branding will now be applied to tires bought in the Tuning Shop, and as standard on some cars, although — we presume due to certain brand/supplier agreements in the real world — not on all vehicles. A physics update is possible, but hasn’t been specifically mooted.

While previously announced, there’s no mention in the latest brief of the “Improvements to online races”. That’s one we’re going to have to wait at least two-thirds of a day to find out more on, but could range from a shake-up of the Daily Race format to new Lobby options (manual host migration, perhaps?) or just the deployment of new netcode for stability.

Other rarely announced items include new engine swaps for various cars — and we’d expect that Espace F1 V10 to be available for one of the two F3500s — and new paints from real vehicles, as well as the regular “various other” changes. There will certainly be plenty to discover tomorrow.

You can download the update now, curiously now called 1.65 instead of the previously mentioned 1.64, ahead of it unlocking at 0800 UTC on Thursday December 4.