Gen-AI controversy aside, Crazy Taxi: World Tour feels like classic arcade Sega – and it’s an absolute blast
Sega has shown a new hands-on demo of Crazy Taxi: World Tour at Gamescom, offering the clearest sign yet that the long-awaited revival can recapture the frantic arcade energy of the 1999 Dreamcast original. Despite ongoing controversy over the game's use of generative AI, Eurogamer's preview suggests the core driving experience remains faithful to the series' irreverent, high-speed roots, which matters for fans hoping a beloved cult classic isn't diluted in its return.
The demo focused on the single-player Crazy Rush mode, featuring returning protagonist Axel and his agile taxi, complete with the signature Crazy Dash, Crazy Stop and Crazy Drift manoeuvres, alongside music from The Offspring and Bad Religion. A newly revealed Germany map took players from a chaotic airport runway, dodging jumbo jets and baggage carts, into a cartoonish tourist town with cobbled streets, market stalls, a pumpkin festival and a hilltop castle, all while collecting and delivering fares against the clock. The game also supports multiplayer, with a closed beta planned ahead of release.
- Crazy Taxi: World Tour previewed hands-on by Eurogamer at Gamescom
- Retains classic arcade thrills despite generative AI controversy
- New Germany map showcased; multiplayer beta planned before launch
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Sega revealed Crazy Taxi in 1999 for the Dreamcast, a game built around fast, exaggerated arcade driving in which players race a taxi around a city, picking up passengers and delivering them to destinations before the clock runs out. It became a cult favourite for its speed, humour and use of punk rock music, and has since been ported to numerous formats. Crazy Taxi: World Tour is Sega's attempt to revive the series for a new generation, expanding the concept to multiple cities around the world rather than a single map.
The revival has attracted attention for two separate reasons. One is nostalgia and anticipation from long-time fans wanting to know whether the new game can recreate the original's distinctive feel. The other is controversy over Sega's reported use of generative AI in the game's development, a topic that has become contentious across the games industry more broadly, with some players and developers objecting to the technology's use on ethical, artistic or labour grounds.
Eurogamer is a games journalism outlet that regularly publishes hands-on previews of unreleased titles based on demos shown at industry events such as Gamescom, a major annual games trade fair in Cologne, Germany. Such previews give early impressions of how a game plays before its full release, though they are based on limited, controlled demo sessions rather than the finished product.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Enthusiasts of the Crazy Taxi series argue that what ultimately matters is the feel of the game itself, and if the core driving mechanics, arcade energy and irreverent tone remain faithful to the beloved 1999 original, that is a genuine achievement worth celebrating on its own terms. They contend that judging a game primarily by its development tools rather than its playable outcome risks dismissing a well-crafted revival before players have had a fair chance to experience it, and that early positive hands-on impressions from those who actually played it deserve real weight.
The case against
Critics of the game's generative AI use argue that how a game is made matters as much as how it plays, particularly given concerns about the technology's impact on artists' livelihoods, training data provenance and the erosion of the craftsmanship that made the original Crazy Taxi memorable. They contend that a nostalgic revival should honour the legacy of the human developers and artists behind the series rather than lean on tools many see as ethically fraught, and that praising the demo without reckoning with those concerns risks normalising practices the industry ought to be scrutinising more closely.