Sega has confirmed it's working on the next installment in the Crazy Taxi series, and details about the reboot are starting to trickle out. The new game will again put you behind the wheel of a taxi, but it will feature an open world described as "massive" and a multiplayer mode.
The idea isn't to remaster one of the original games, like the arcade version that launched in 1999 or the Dreamcast version released a year later. Sega is instead channeling the spirit of the original into a new title developed for the 2020s. It's not just cars that have evolved over the past 20 years; video games have changed significantly, and what worked in the early 1990s and the early 2000s likely wouldn't sell today.
In a Japanese-language video spotted by our colleagues at The Drive, Sega described the game as something along the lies of Mario Kart's Battle Mode. You'll be racing against the clock, which has always been the case, but you'll also be competing against other players. It sounds kind of like the original Crazy Taxi meets Grand Theft Auto with a little less violence, which is somewhat ironic as Grand Theft Auto III stole Crazy Taxi's thunder when it was released in 2001 by letting players take on taxi missions as side quests. We've come full circle.
Footage released in 2023 gives us an early look at the next Crazy Taxi. It's as fast-paced as the game you played on the demo Dreamcast at your local Target while your folks shopped for groceries in the early 2000s but there are several new features. Like in Grand Theft Auto, you can build up some kind of a "wanted" level and get the police (which seem to be driving convertible SUVs and McLaren-esque supercars) on your tail. Drifting seemingly gives you an acceleration boost, complete with flames in the wheel wells, and you may be able to play as a cop.
The setting should feel familiar: it looks like the next Crazy Taxi will again take place in a city modeled after San Francisco. That means you'll have plenty of steep hills to use as ramps if you need to jump over traffic, beaches to drift across, and possibly bridges to bump rivals over.
We don't know when Sega will release the next Crazy Taxi yet. More details should emerge in the coming months.
