If you played and enjoyed the original Crazy Taxi which was first released in February 1999, then you should be excited about the upcoming reboot. The upcoming Crazy Taxi is billed to be a triple-A game, according to one of the Sega studios that is working on the game.
During The Game Awards last year, Sega teased a flurry of titles that were in development. Some of them were remakes of dated titles from the company. A leaker with the moniker Midori put out a string of posts on social media with bizarre claims about the upcoming Crazy Taxi game including that it would be a live service title with a “100-person survival mode”.
Midori with the X handle @MbKKssTBhz5 also claimed that the game will draw inspiration from other successful live service titles like Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto Online. The handle also claimed, “Sega wants to be competitive in the live service scene and use classic IPs in new ways with new technologies”.
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“Both Crazy Taxi and Jet Set are live service games that are also having remakes before reboots release. Jet Set is closer in gameplay to Fortnite than Crazy Taxi and there are shooting elements planned. Jet Set reboot has graffiti and shooting gameplay and open world concept with exploration as the focus. There are new characters and story too.”
Crazy Taxi was first released as an arcade game and featured only a map inspired by San Francisco. It was one of the first games to use the Sega NAOMI hardware processor modeled from the Sega Dreamcast. The arcade cabinet was unveiled at the 1999 Amusement Operators Union exposition in Japan.
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The success of Crazy Taxi inspired sequels and spinoffs. The latest entry in the franchise was Crazy Taxi Tycoon which was published in 2017 for Android and iOS.
Sega’s Sapporo Studio will help with Crazy Taxi development
Sapporo Studio was established around December 2021 to help with the development of different Sega games. The studio is Sega’s first domestic development studio outside of Tokyo. The president of the studio and Sega’s senior executive officer Takaya Segawa explained the reason for having the studio outside Tokyo.
“It was difficult to hire all staff in Tokyo alone, so we began to consider setting up a domestic satellite office,” Segawa told The Japan Times. “Sapporo is one of the most populous cities in Japan while also being surrounded by nature. The many universities and vocational schools here provide an attractive environment for securing human resources.”
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Segawa explained that the studio has a research and development department which is in charge of “designing and programming games” as well as a QA department. The studio received more applications than it anticipated from its job advert and opened a new branch of Sapporo Studio in April 2023.
“We’re responsible for titles such as Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis and Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! in cooperation with the bases in Tokyo and overseas,” Segawa said. “We are also participating in the development of Triple-A titles, including Crazy Taxi.”
Sapporo Studio doesn’t have any independently developed game at the moment but Segawa believes that will change in the future. Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller is the third main installment in the franchise and was released 22 years ago as an Xbox exclusive.
Hopefully, the Crazy Taxi reboot will be an overhaul of the entire franchise rather than just a graphics upgrade for the current-gen consoles. No release timeline is given yet for the release of the reboot.
