Two of Sega’s most iconic series from the Dreamcast era could be making a return, and Sega has sent out a survey that wants to know if you want them back.
Sega has had a very narrow focus over the last decade. Aside from its PC studios pumping out Football Manager and Total War games on an almost yearly basis, its output has been mainly Yakuza, Sonic the Hedgehog and Persona. While Yakuza: Like A Dragon and Persona 5 Royal rank as some of the best games of all time in my eyes, Sega has an extremely strong back-catalogue that isn’t getting utilised. Thankfully we’ve seen a shift in the last few years with Super Monkey Ball and Samba De Amigo making their return. But it sounds like two Dreamcast greats are next in line.
Rumours of revivals of Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio first surfaced around a year ago, with a report from Bloomberg (Via Polygon) saying that Sega wants to reboot the series as a part of its “Super-Game Initiative” that parent company Sega Sammy unveiled in November 2021.
The rumour also stated that Crazy Taxi was a year in development at the time and is planned to release in either 2024 or 2025, and that Jet Set Radio will be next in line. Now, a user on Reddit spotted the two games in the latest ‘Sega Insights Lab’ survey asking about various Sega series, presumably to gauge interest before reviving them.
It’s all I want!
Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi – despite having nothing to do with each other – have a lot in common. Both series are remembered fondly for their exciting gameplay, amazing soundtracks, and incredible sense of late 90s style. Both hit the Dreamcast in 2000, had their final new entry on the Xbox in 2002 before going dormant. Aside from ports, appearances in Sega crossovers, and weird mobile titles (including one starring Hulk Hogan in Crazy Taxi’s case) the series haven’t made much headway since then.
It’s unclear what Sega seeks to do with these rebooted series but the aforementioned Super Game Initiative is apparently the company’s strategy to create games with a focus on global reach, online interactivity, community building, and IP utilisation. So we could see an online-focused Crazy Taxi where you compete with others to get fares, or a Jet Set Radio game where you can skate around with your pals like in Skate 3 and tag buildings together.
I love both of these series and am super excited to see companies dig into their back catalogues to bring back some long-dormant titles. Sony and Nintendo could take notes by giving us new entries in series like Ape Escape and F-Zero.
