Gran Turismo Sport revs onto PS4 November 18

Ever car has been remodelled from scratch, rather than borrow models from Gran Turismo 6 – meaning you can kiss those jaggy edges goodbye. Each one has a fully rendered interior view, too, so you can drive from the cockpit instead of from a disembodied camera bolted to the front bumper.

Six tracks have been confirmed so far: the Northern Isle Speedway (the first time a half-mile oval has shown up in the GT series), Tokyo Expressway, Brands Hatch (both the indie and F1 circuits), Willow Springs raceway, and (of course) the Nurburgring. All the returning tracks have been reworked from the ground up to take advantage of the PS4’s extra graphical grunt.

Dirt tracks will also be making a return, although they weren’t ready to be shown off at the launch event. There’s finally a livery editor, too, so you can customise your cars before heading online.

That’s only half the story, though – this is also the first time the FIA, motorsport’s governing body, has signed off on a game.

With officially sanctioned virtual racing, players will be able to enter races and compete globally – with the winners heading to international finals at the end of the year. The very best drivers will be honored at the FIA end-of-year awards ceremony alongside actual racing drivers.

Sony will be holding the inaugural Gran Turismo Sport race later today; we’ve embedded the live stream above, so you can tune in and see what level of competition you can expect when the game arrives.

GT fans have a few months to start visualsing their racing lines – Gran Turismo Sport arrives worldwide on the 15th of November in the US and 16th of November in Europe. Sad news for the UK though – we have to wait until the 18th.

We’re about to get behind the (virtual) wheel, so make sure to check back later today to find out how we got on.