Gran Turismo 7 delayed to 2022 due to "COVID-related production challenges"

A Gran Turismo 7 delay is finally official after some minor release date confusion.

The upcoming PS5 game never had a big release date announcement, though some ads indicated that it would arrive in the first half of this year. Sony recently gave a statement to GQ UK that confirms the next chapter in PlayStation's flagship racing series is now planned to arrive in 2022 instead - for pretty much the exact reason you'd expect.

"GT7 has been impacted by COVID-related production challenges and therefore will shift from 2021 to 2022," Sony wrote. "With the ongoing pandemic, it’s a dynamic and changing situation and some critical aspects of game production have been slowed over the past several months. We’ll share more specifics on GT7’s release date when available."

Gran Turismo 7 was first announced in Sony's PS5 reveal event back in June 2020. We haven't heard much about the game since then, though director Kazunori Yamauchi said it will be a return to form for fans of the first four games "and provide the best Gran Turismo experience at present."

While it didn't get an official statement, it's looking increasingly likely that God of War: Ragnarok is off the table for this year as well. We still have Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Horizon: Forbidden West as big PS5 exclusives coming in 2021, along with the multiplatform games you can find in our big list of video game release dates.

Sony has also confirmed that it's working on a PSVR PS5 headset, featuring an improved design and all-new controllers that share some DualSense features.