Earlier this month, Sega revealed that five of the company’s dormant franchises will be getting revivals on modern platforms. The games include Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, and Golden Axe. Since the announcement, little information has been revealed about these games, but Sega let a few new details slip during a recent management meeting. A slide shown revealed that Jet Set Radio will be set in an open world take on Tokyo. The Streets of Rage game also now has a title: Streets of Rage: Revolution.ย
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Readers interested in checking out the full management meeting can do so right here. The slide showcasing the new games can be found below.ย
Shinobi’s New Developer
As of this writing, Sega has not revealed what developers will be handling these games, but there’s a good chance the new Shinobi is being developed by LizardCube. LizardCube has been playing coy about their next project, and the team posted a very vague Tweet during The Game Awards. That Tweet has led to speculation that LizardCube is the one handling Shinobi, and a little more fuel was added to the fire as a result of this management meeting. As pointed out by Twitter user @FizzaClips, the Shinobi art style in the slide bears a very strong resemblance to LizardCube’s key art for Streets of Rage 4 and the remake of Wonder Boy and the Dragon’s Trap.ย
If LizardCube really is handling the new Shinobi, that would be good news for Sega fans! The team has a proven track record when it comes to 2D games, and they clearly have a lot of passion for games from the Master System and Genesis eras. While the evidence seems to be mounting up, readers should take this speculation with a grain of salt pending an announcement.ย
Sega’s “Mainstay IPs”
In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Sega co-COO Shuji Utsumi attributed the return of franchises like Jet Set Radio and Shinobi to the success of Sega’s “pillars”: Sonic the Hedgehog, Persona, and Like a Dragon (formerly known as Yakuza). In the company’s management meeting, Sega once again pointed to the success of these franchises, and the positive impact they’ve had. All three have seen global growth, and Sega also sees Angry Birds as another “mainstay IP” following the purchase of Rovio earlier this year.ย
Hopefully the success of these brands will lead to even more of Sega’s dormant franchises coming back. Even with these five new games in development, the company still has a number of beloved games that haven’t seen a new entry in years, or even decades. In that Washington Post interview, Utsumi also indicated that the company is looking to create a new Virtua Fighter.ย
Are you excited about Sega’s slate of upcoming games? Which of the five new games are you most looking forward to? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter atย @Marcdachampย or on Instagram atย @Dachampgaming!
