Sega’s new Crazy Taxi is taking the open-world and massively multiplayer route, even if that sounds like someone took a wrong turn somewhere

Sega is still yet to show off anything of its Crazy Taxi reboot, but it will apparently be open-world and massively multiplayer.

When you think of Crazy Taxi, you almost definitely think of the very odd occasion where you see it in an arcade and think “yeah I’ll spend a couple of quid and ultimately not do that well because who has the money to actually get good at arcade games.” You also probably don’t think of it as much more than a wacky arcade game, because that’s exactly what it is. But, it’s been 17 years since the last non-mobile take on the classic driving series, so the upcoming reboot of Crazy Taxi sounds like it’s skipping over a few trends and heading straight for what everyone is doing these days: an open world, and multiplayer.

Yes, as spotted by Automaton, in an interview published today on the Japanese Sega YouTube channel, series producer Kenji Kanno spoke of the upcoming game where he said it’s being developed as a “completely new” Crazy Taxi that lots of people can play at once. Apparently specifics are still being figured out in places, and multiplayer is still in the testing phase, but the ultimate goal is to retain those classic Crazy Taxi hijinks while still introducing new mechanics. Alongside a realistic city, areas like a theme park-like map and one inspired by the US’ West Coast are being worked on.

The recruitment page for the game also features a number of job roles, which notes that Sega is aiming for a big hit with the reboot, and is where the mention of it being open-world and massively multiplayer comes from – the developer has also previously said it wants it to be a triple-A game, so it sounds quite different from its arcade roots. Personally, I’m not sure if Crazy Taxi will be broadly appealing as a multiplayer game, but stranger things have happened. In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait for Sega to show off more.