Sega's New Crazy Taxi Will Have a "Massively Multiplayer" Focus

Sega has wanted Crazy Taxi online play for more than 20 years.

By Marc Deschamps

Since it was announced at The Game Awards last year, official details surrounding Sega's new Crazy Taxi game have been few and far between. That's changed a bit, however, as Sega is starting to recruit for the project, and has now listed several job openings, as well as a recruitment video. As discovered by Video Games Chronicle, Crazy Taxi is being described as a "massively multiplayer driving game" and Sega is looking for recruits with experience creating open world online games. The publisher also wants applicants that have experience with Unreal Engine, and aims to make the game "a global hit, primarily in the North American market." 

In the recruitment video, producer Kenji Kanno mentions that the game's world will be based on the west coast of the United States. The original Crazy Taxi featured locations inspired by California, and it seems this new iteration will continue that trend. Players were able to compete with one another in Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars on PSP, but multiplayer in that game was more of a bonus on top of the single-player campaign. Now, it sounds like competing over fares is going to be the primary focus of this new Crazy Taxi, which makes sense as an extension of the original concept. Developers on the series have been thinking of ways to make online play a thing for more than two decades now, but the technology wasn't quite where it needed to be. 

This is not the first time that we've heard that the new Crazy Taxi will have an online focus. Back in February, the leaker known as Midori wrote that the game will have 100-player races, and will be a live service game. Midori had also claimed that players could expect to see things like live events and customization options, but Sega has yet to confirm these elements. That said, Midori's leak seems to have gained a bit of credibility as a result of these new job listings. 

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It remains to be seen whether the new Crazy Taxi can manage to bring the series into the modern era, but clearly Sega has big plans! At this time, we don't know how far away this new Crazy Taxi is from release, but fans eager for content based on the series can look forward to seeing Axel added to the roster of Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble later this year. 

How do you feel about Crazy Taxi putting a focus on online multiplayer? Have you played any previous games in the series? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

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