Crazy Taxi: World Tour is a major evolution of the arcade game

Sega's new Crazy Taxi somehow manages to feel like a classic arcade experience and thoroughly modern at the same time. Announced Sunday at Xbox Games Showcase, Crazy Taxi: World Tour feels, at its core, very familiar: As the cabbie Axel, players will pick up fares and drive recklessly to ensure his clients get to their destinations in mere seconds, no matter how much damage and chaos he causes. As long as the customers are happy, he's happy.

But Sega and original Crazy Taxi creator Kenji Kanno are clearly thinking much bigger than just recreating a 1999 arcade game with modern graphics. Axel now has a much larger set of "Crazy" driving moves at his disposal, and his customers have a very broad range of special requests. They don't just want to go to Tower Records or Pizza Hut anymore; they want Axel to take them fishing and help them deliver huge stacks of pizzas. These new additions to the gameplay are called, appropriately, Crazy Missions.

During a hands-off demo at Summer Game Fest Play Days, Kanno and another member of the Crazy Taxi: World Tour team showed off how the series has evolved over the past 27 years. In addition to familiar Crazy Drift and Crazy Jump moves, Axel can now perform rapid Crazy Backdashes, turning his taxi around 180 degrees in a flash. As the developers raced through a modernized but faithful recreation of the original Crazy Taxi West Coast map — basically downtown San Francisco — Axel performed physics-defying driving moves, much to the delight of his passengers and media in attendance. Everything played out a little faster and a little more destructive. It felt like Crazy Taxi. The return of classic tunes, including The Offspring's "All I Want" and Bad Religion's "Ten in 2010," helped amplify that nostalgia.

But there's more than just retro arcade thrills in Crazy Taxi: World Tour. Sega is promising a globe-trotting story mode in which Axel chases "down mysterious masked villains who stole his beloved taxi." Players will also be able to compete in online multiplayer modes and earn cosmetic customizations for their taxi. Sega kept many details about the breadth of Crazy Taxi: World Tour's offerings under wraps, but it's clear that the publisher has AAA ambitions, and wants to give its new Crazy Taxi a robust suite of modes to deliver variety in play. Players can "expect a lot of content," Kanno said.

"When we created this game, we wanted players to play however they want," Kanno said through a translator. "We don’t want to force a play style on them."

One new component that Kanno showed off was Nighttime Missions. There appear to be four distinct time periods in each day, offfering distinct gameplay options. Kanno showed off a Time Attack mission set at night, in which Axel had to face off against a rival driver named Bull. The two raced through the city, passing through gates on a set course. Axel also had to complete a set of tasks during that Time Attack race, performing 20 Crazy Dashes and one crazy jump, with another major restriction: He couldn't hit other cars more than 10 times.

Perhaps the most delightful mission we saw Axel undertake was with a wannabe fisherman as his customer. The fisherman hopped into the backseat of Axel's convertible cab, then Axel drove him to a pier, where his customer cast his line. After the fisherman got a nibble, Axel slammed the car into reverse multiple times, helping his customer yank a giant fish from the West Coast bay. A second attempt yielded something more comical: a ship's wheel from some undersea wreckage. One can easily see a "Get Bass!" joke happening in Crazy Taxi: World Tour's fishing minigame.

During the preview, Kanno acknowledged that Crazy Taxi is a product of its time. In 1999, people in big cities relied on yellow cabs to get around. Now, people rely on ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft. Kanno said that the Crazy Taxi: World Tour team did find a way to incorporate ride-sharing into gameplay, but declined to offer specifics.

It certainly sounds like Crazy Taxi: World Tour has many secrets still to share. We'll surely find out more in the coming months and when Crazy Taxi: World Tour arrives on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in 2027.