Sega has revealed that its upcoming Crazy Taxi reboot will take some risks in terms of direction, with the project supposedly taking the form of an open-world driving MMO that has a multiplayer focus.
Per a new video released by Sega (with additional reporting by the ever-reliable Automaton Media), the studio is currently working out the specifics of the Crazy Taxi reboot's gameplay and how it will work with "many players at once" (that's Automaton's wording).
Sega's goal is to make the project feel like classic Crazy Taxi while still introducing new mechanics and systems, so if you're a Crazy Taxi fan and you're feeling miffed by the change in direction, you might not have too much cause to worry.
In the video (which is entirely in Japanese, so we're looking to Automaton for translation), Sega employees currently working on Crazy Taxi discuss their vision for the game and what they intend to achieve by making it.
Producer Kenji Kanno says the team is making a "completely new" version of Crazy Taxi, while his team members mention multiple different maps for the game, including a realistic city, an area inspired by the West Coast, and a theme park-style zone.
Additional information is available via some recently-created Sega job listings for Crazy Taxi (which, once again, are in Japanese), calling for staffers to assist with an open-world racer built in Unreal Engine with a massively multiplayer focus.
It might not sound like the Crazy Taxi you're used to, but the footage we see in the video, as well as what was shown during last year's Game Awards, seems to hew pretty close to the series' trademark fast-paced arcade racing action, at any rate.
We still don't know exactly when the Crazy Taxi reboot will arrive (which feels pretty appropriate for a taxi game, am I right?). For that matter, Sega has yet to officially unveil the game in full.
Hopefully, we'll learn more about this Crazy Taxi project in the coming months. Stay tuned for more, and in the meantime, if you're in a nostalgic mood, you can grab the original Crazy Taxi right now on PC via Steam.
