New Crazy Taxi going mainstream with massive open world and online multiplayer

Sega announced not one, not two, but five revivals of classic IPs during the last Game Awards, including an all-new entry in the Crazy Taxi series. Anyone hoping for a traditional recreation of its single-player score attack gameplay needs to rethink their expectations, though, as Sega has officially described it as an online multiplayer game with an open world setting.

Very little was known about the new Crazy Taxi, with only a few seconds of gameplay teased back in December. Earlier today, Sega published a video to its YouTube channel featuring the development team discussing the title. It’s entirely in Japanese but, according to Automaton, the team mentioned testing the game with multiplayer in mind. Online functionality has been confirmed by new job openings on Sega’s website, with the game referred to as a “large-scale online title.”

That said, you should still expect it to play like a Crazy Taxi game since the team’s goal is to maintain the original style while still implementing new mechanics. At the very least, it’ll most certainly retain the series’ visual style. This was already evident by the brief footage we’ve seen of it, but the Sega video also stated that the new game’s theme park-like map will be inspired by U.S. cities, much like the maps in previous games.

There remain a number of questions surrounding the new Crazy Taxi, but it being described as a primarily online multiplayer game makes it sound like it could be a live-service. In fact, a Bloomberg report from 2022 alleged this would be the case, with Sega chasing after the Fortnite model, meaning plenty of microtransactions, too. I imagine a lot of Crazy Taxi fans would prefer a traditional arcade-style title like the older ones, but Sega clearly wants this revival to be a huge success, which means appealing to a much broader audience.

Personally, a multiplayer Crazy Taxi does sound appealing. The previous games could get chaotic already since they were all about getting your passengers to their destinations as quickly as possible. Having multiple players all competing with other should only add to the chaos. The gameplay teaser at The Game Awards also appeared to confirm an option to play as cops pursuing the taxi drivers, adding another layer of competitiveness.

Pursuing a live service model, however, still invites risks. While there are plenty of live services that remain popular, like Fortnite and Apex Legends, several others have been forced to shut down after only a year or two. The new Crazy Taxi may have an advantage since it’s not just another battle royale shooter, so it won’t be trying to weigh in on crowded territory and should have the freedom to carve its own dedicated niche. But while I’m sure long-time fans of the series will at least check it out at launch, the most important questions are whether Crazy Taxi will attract enough newcomers to the series and whether it can retain a large enough player base to warrant long-term support.