Gran Turismo Sport servers will go offline early next year

Racing titles are notorious for having relatively short post-launch lives due to the fact that included vehicles and brands need to be licensed for the games. As such, while unfortunate, it comes as no surprise that 2017’s PlayStation exclusive Gran Turismo Sport will see its servers permanently go offline early next year.

Making the announcement on their blog, the team at Polyphony Digital said “On January 31, 2024, at 06:00 UTC, the online services of the PlayStation 4-exclusive software ‘Gran Turismo Sport’ will come to an end. Prior to this on December 01, 2023, we will also end the distribution of purchasable Add-On items from the PlayStation Store that can be used in-game.”

They continue, “After the end of service date, it will no longer be possible to utilize online services such as the Community, Open Lobby, and Sport Mode, nor online features/items such as custom liveries. The offline portions of the game can still be played, including purchased Add-Ons. We would like to thank the many users of the Gran Turismo Sport online service since its first launch in 2017. From here on, we will continue to further improve the online services for the currently available title ‘Gran Turismo 7’ on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.”

Full details on what will and won’t be available to play following the servers shutting down can be found HERE, however one question which remains unanswered has to do with the way GT Sport’s save system functions. Currently, you need an online connection in order to save your game, and so presumably the title will receive some sort of patch to allow for local saves at one point prior to the servers going offline.

While many agree that the current-gen Gran Turismo 7 is an improvement over GT Sport in most aspects, it is still disappointing to see yet another racing title going offline.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of the current licensing agreements for racing games? Does it need to be overhauled? What is your favourite GT entry? Let us know down below.

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