Those stunning Gran Turismo 7 screenshots you're seeing are basically straight-up photographs

As we said in our Gran Turismo 7 review, the latest installment in Sony's flagship racer looks incredible in motion, but it also looks amazing in still photographs, and that's partly thanks to its photo mode's expanded Scapes feature. 

Scapes was introduced back in Gran Turismo Sport as a way to place the game's hyper-realistic car models in actual photographs which could then be combined into a single, carefully arranged shot in photo mode. The cars in Gran Turismo 7 look even better, and it's got the Scapes to match. 

You can thank Gran Turismo 7's Scapes mode for many of the incredible screenshots you may have seen overtake social media since the game's launch. The racer uses Scapes to deliver a much more literal photo mode than most games. Rather than photogrammetry, which involves using photos of real environments as a foundation to build digital environments, Scapes can literally add digital cars to photos of real places. 

Thanks to some impressive placement tech and touch-up options, this results in convincing screenshot-photo hybrids which could pass for live-action shots. The actual environments in Gran Turismo 7 aren't quite as realistic altogether, seemingly because more work went into the painstakingly detailed cars, but Scapes still allows for some eye-trickingly authentic presentation. Of course, you can get some great shots even if you just focus on the in-game cars and tracks alone since Gran Turismo 7's exceptional lighting makes just about anything shine. 

Here are the best steering wheels for Gran Turismo 7.