Somewhere out there, a PlayStation fan is about to become a video game character.
Sony has spent 30 years building some of the most recognizable game worlds in the industry, from the streets of Ghost of Tsushima to the circuits of Gran Turismo. The characters who populate those worlds have always been fictional or famous. Until now, nobody’s neighbor had ever made the cut.
PlayStation launches The Playerbase, a program to put real fans inside PlayStation Studios games
Sony Interactive Entertainment launched The Playerbase on April 7, a community program built on a genuinely simple idea: find a fan, scan their face, put them in the game.
Fans can apply at playstation.com/the-playerbase, answer questions about their PlayStation history, and sign in with their PSN account. Sony will review applications, shortlist finalists for video interviews, and then fly the winner to a visual arts studio in Los Angeles for a scanning day. The program launches with Gran Turismo 7 as its first game.
Each game will shape the concept around its own world. In Gran Turismo 7, the winner’s face lands in the game as a character portrait, and they sit down with a designer to build a custom Fantasy Logo and vehicle livery, both of which go into the Showcase menu and stay there permanently.
Eligible markets span select countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, South Africa, and Australia. Sony said more PlayStation Studios titles would follow, and left it at that.
The Playerbase lands as Sony bets harder on making players feel like they belong inside the experience, not just outside it. The company picked up a patent in January 2026 for a system that generates AI-driven podcasts narrated by PlayStation characters, each episode stitched together from a player’s recent activity, their friends’ habits, and their favorite genres.
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