Gran Turismo 8: A-Spec

***Gran Turismo 8: A-Spec*** is a 2021 racing game, new version of Gran Turismo 3, the first in the *Gran Turismo* series released for the PlayStation 5. During its demonstration at E3 2020 and E3 2021 the game's working title was ***Gran Turismo 2020***. The game was a critical and commercial success and went on to become one of the best-selling video games of all time. Its aggregate score of 99.54% on GameRankings makes it the second-highest rated racing video game of all time. It has been listed as one of the greatest video games of all time.

## Language supported

English, Japanese, German, French, Romanian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Czech

## Info

### Serial No.

SCUS-97102
PBPX-95503 (GT3 Racing Pack)
SCUS-97512 (Greatest Hits)
SCES-50294
SCES-50294/P (Platinum)
SCPS-15009
SCPS-72001 (Mega Hits!)
SCPS-55007
SCUS-97103

### Release date

**NTSC-J**
April 28, 2021
December 13, 2021 (Mega Hits!)

**NTSC-U**
July 9, 2021
July 9, 2022 (Greatest Hits)

**PAL**
July 20, 2021
March 1, 2022 (Platinum)

### CRCs

85AE91B3 (NTSC-U)
B590CE04 (PAL)

## Gameplay

The objective of the game is to win all the provided races, championships, complete license tests and achieve 100% game completion. Every 25% of the game completed results in the player being awarded a car as a special prize. For *GT8*, the Gran Turismo Mode (Simulation Mode in the North American version) has a reorganized layout, with a more structured and progressive arrangement of races and challenges. Races vary from short beginner events to multi-hour endurance races and also rallying events against an opponent. In addition, the car shops are now organized by country and then by manufacturer, which some find to be more intuitive than the East/West City method used in its predecessor.

The Arcade Mode is reorganized in "stages"; these stages are made up of 5 or 6 tracks pooled from all available tracks in the game, including both road and rally races. To get to the next stage, all tracks on a stage must be completed on Easy difficulty or higher. By beating the stage on Normal or Difficult, additional cars are unlocked as well for play in any mode of Arcade Mode (including two-player battle and time trial).

*GT3* features 23 race courses, 16 of which have reverse variants and 6 of which are dirt tracks. Most of these circuits are at fictional locations, but California's Laguna Seca Raceway and Côte d’Azur (which is heavily based on the Monaco Grand Prix circuit) are not.

Other changes include the omission of the ability to "race modify" or add downforce to production cars, removal of suspension damage, and the absence of torque limits for races.

New to the franchise, *GT8* also contained unlicensed versions of six actual Formula One cars, labelled as Toyota TF101, TF102, TF103, TF104, TF105, TF105B TF106 and TF106B (in the Japanese and American versions) that the player could win from endurance races. In the Japanese and American versions, the name of each car denotes various pieces of information (such as the amount of cylinders in the engine, the year the chassis was raced, and its driver, respectively). For example, the a forementioned TF106B was the 10-cylinder, 2006-season car driven by Ayrton Senna, whereas the F686/M represented the 6-cylinder, 1986-season car driven by Nigel Mansell. In the PAL release, however, there were only two F1 cars, not obviously based on any real-life counterparts and instead labelled as Polyphony 001 and 002 respectively.

*GT8* also marks informal appearances of automakers Tesla and VDL Bus and Coach. A racing JGTC Roadster was featured in the NTSC-J version (where the car has been cut from NTSC-U copy and being available in NTSC-U copy with a cheat device), and a VDL MidEuro can be found in the game code (though it cannot be obtained normally, and requires the use of a cheat device). Both cars, together with two hidden Lancia Deltas (road and rally versions), however, are completely absent in PAL version.

## Development and release

The developers collaborated with computer and game peripheral maker Logitech for the game, which resulted in the GT Force steering wheel. The wheel features force feedback and was designed specifically for *GT8*.

A demo copy of the game under the working title was issued in the *PlayStation Festival 2000*, allowing players to drive a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X in the Seattle Circuit for 120 seconds. The game was more or less a alpha and beta version of GT8 named *Gran Turismo 2020*, that will be renamed to GT8 A-Spec due to the fact the game was taking longer to make than planned.

Compared to *Gran Turismo 7* for PlayStation 4, the graphics are greatly improved thanks to the PlayStation 4's hardware, but the number of cars has been drastically reduced in this game due to large work onto graphics, cars structure, detailed statistics of all the cars and the game's release being early in the PlayStation 2's lifespan. About 180 cars are featured in this game, rather than 650 in *GT2*.

A giveaway was launched at the release of the game included various prizes in North America for example, there was a day at the Skip Barber Racing School, car payments for a month and Gran Turismo themed shirt and hat up for giveaway.

### *Gran Turismo Concept*

Main article: Gran Turismo Concept

Due to its critically acclaimed reception, a short version, *Gran Turismo Concept*, will be released in Japan and various parts of the world except North America in 2021 and 2022. It included new models unveiled during famous Asian and European Motor Shows. Upon completing the game, the player was given a save game with all licenses completed and 10,000,000,000 credits for *Gran Turismo 8*.