The original Crazy Taxi released 27 years ago and launched a series of spinoffs but the franchise has been dormant for some time. But now after almost a decade, it’s finally returning with a new installment in a big way – releasing on all major platforms and PC, and built in Unreal Engine. Based on the brief gameplay I’ve seen of Crazy Taxi: World Tour so far, it’s certainly a game that will satisfy original fans and perhaps bring in new ones as well.
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Sega and Crazy Taxi creator Kenji Kanno brought Crazy Taxi: World Tour to Summer Game Fest 2026 and showed off about 15 or so minutes of gameplay. The hands-off presentation meant to showcase not only how World Tour resembles the classic arcade game but also how it’s been modernized for current-gen systems and the current generation of players. That means it’s no longer just about getting passengers from A to B – though that is, of course, still the foundation of the series.
In the presentation, Kanno and another developer played through a faithful recreation of Crazy Taxi’s original West Coast map (which many people will recognize as being a version of San Francisco). It started off with basic fares/missions, basic jumps and drifts, and a general overview of how Crazy Taxi looks on modern platforms. I have to say that it’s exactly what you’d expect it to look after all these years. It’s still arcade-y – in a good, nostalgic way – but it has just enough upgrades to make it work today. But then they showed off what’s new.
Axel clearly has learned some things for Crazy Taxi: World Tour. In addition to having jumps and drifts, he can now Crazy Backdash, which means launching the car in reverse and flipping it 180 degrees. You wouldn’t think that it would serve much purpose considering you’re almost always driving forward at crazy speeds, but based on what we saw in the presentation, it significantly helped getting to a new fare before time ran out. It’s an essential part of the gameplay in this new installment. (By the way, you can also drive in water.)
Moreover, if you don’t feel like driving people around, you can, well… still drive people around but in a different way. Axel can help quickly deliver a few dozen pizzas around the city – but with the modern engine, if you crash, you may lose some pizzas along the way and that’ll affect your results. You can also help a fisherman catch some big fish by driving him to the dock and engaging in a technical minigame, of sorts, by quickly reversing the car. You may catch a small fish, or in the case of what was shown in the trailer, you may catch a shark. But if you want a more traditional car experience, you can also play through timed trials.
Beyond the core gameplay, Crazy Taxi: World Tour is meant to be a true turning point for the franchise. The original game was limited by the platforms of the time, but with modern consoles and PC, Sega and Kanno’s team can go bigger and bolder. World Tour is what its name implies: Axel will travel across five continents throughout the game. Kanno wouldn’t provide more information on what that will entail, but players will no longer be stuck in San Francisco. Plus, there’s now nighttime – specifically, there are four time periods to play through.
While we saw a good amount of gameplay in the short presentation, there’s still a lot we don’t know about Crazy Taxi: World Tour. Sega and Kanno mentioned there will be multiplayer – something players have wanted for a very long time – as well as cosmetics in the game, and surely there will be more modes and mechanics that haven’t been revealed yet. We should find out more in the near future considering World Tour releases in 2027.
