Crazy Taxi World Tour Brings SEGA’s Arcade Chaos Back Across 5 Global Cities

SEGA is bringing one of its most recognizable arcade franchises back with Crazy Taxi: World Tour, a new global adventure that preserves the speed, reckless driving and score chasing identity of the 1999 original while significantly expanding its missions, locations and multiplayer systems.

The game follows returning driver Axel after a mysterious group of masked international car thieves steals his beloved taxi. His pursuit takes players across 5 different cities, each featuring its own terrain, routes and driving challenges. According to the official Crazy Taxi: World Tour website, players will transport passengers, complete unconventional jobs, earn money and unlock additional vehicles and customization options while travelling around the world.

Classic driving techniques remain central to the experience. Crazy Dash, Crazy Stop and Crazy Drift return, allowing skilled players to chain aggressive maneuvers together while maintaining speed and increasing rewards. The traditional Arcade Mode is also returning, preserving the familiar race against the clock where every second matters and earning as much money as possible remains the objective.

What appears to distinguish World Tour from simply recreating the original formula is its broader mission design. A Map Trailer featured a city inspired by Germany containing airport runways, mountain roads and a larger interconnected environment. Missions ranged from conventional passenger transportation to delivering pizzas and even chasing down an aircraft preparing to leave the airport, pushing the absurdity beyond simply finding the fastest route between 2 locations.

The World Tour campaign uses those activities to create a more structured adventure around Axel's search for his stolen vehicle, while SEGA says players will encounter unusual characters and different challenges throughout each city. That represents a major expansion from the straightforward arcade structure that defined the original Crazy Taxi while still keeping driving and time pressure at the center of the game.

Multiplayer is another major part of the revival. SEGA's upcoming Closed Network Test will run from September 12 to September 14, 2026, featuring 2 maps, 6 vehicles and 4 playable drivers. Pickup Race challenges players to deliver passengers before their competitors, while Cops 'n' Cabbies divides players between taxi drivers and police. Ranked and Custom Match options will also be available.

The network test will run on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, while the complete game is also coming to Nintendo Switch 2. PC requirements for the test target 1080p at 60 FPS using High graphics settings with an RTX 4060 or RX 6700 XT, 16 GB of RAM and an SSD, although SEGA notes that these specifications do not represent the final retail requirements.

Crazy Taxi first reached arcades in 1999 before becoming one of the defining games of the Dreamcast era. Its combination of open city driving, aggressive shortcuts, rock music and deliberately chaotic physics gave it an identity completely different from conventional racing games. World Tour appears designed around preserving that arcade personality rather than transforming Crazy Taxi into a realistic driving experience.

The revival was previously shown as part of the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, where SEGA confirmed a 2027 release across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. It remains one of several classic properties surviving SEGA's wider restructuring, alongside projects connected to Jet Set Radio and other legacy franchises.

Crazy Taxi does not need realism, a massive simulation model or complicated vehicle physics to justify returning. It needs speed, shortcuts and missions ridiculous enough that crashing through half the city somehow still feels like efficient taxi service.

World Tour appears to understand that. The return of Crazy Dash and Crazy Drift preserves the mechanical identity of the original, while a proper campaign, 5 cities and missions involving everything from pizza deliveries to chasing aircraft give SEGA room to make the formula substantially larger without losing its arcade personality.

Multiplayer could become the biggest addition if Cops 'n' Cabbies and Pickup Race maintain the same controlled chaos. After more than 25 years, Crazy Taxi may finally have the online format its gameplay was almost designed for.

Can Crazy Taxi: World Tour capture the arcade magic of the 1999 original, or does SEGA need to make the missions even crazier to justify bringing the series back?