Sega goes by way of a kind of phases when it decides it needs to be Sega once more — the Sega of blue skies, killer arcade cupboards, and the fantastic unfulfilled promise of the Dreamcast.
Final week, the writer launched the primary unique Tremendous Monkey Ball recreation in a decade. On the Recreation Awards final December, the corporate introduced an initiative to convey a few of its traditional recreation franchises again to life, together with new video games within the Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and Loopy Taxi sequence.
That was a fan-pleasing transfer, although many questioned how (or, certainly, whether or not) Sega meant to make these video games related for a contemporary viewers. We now have a partial reply, so far as Loopy Taxi is worried.
Sega is shifting to employees up the event workforce making the brand new Loopy Taxi, and in a sequence of job adverts, the sport is constantly known as a “large-scale on-line title,” “open world,” and a “massively multiplayer driving recreation.” The unique is a good, fast-paced arcade driving recreation about ferrying passengers round a metropolis map as quick as doable.
In an advert in search of a lead recreation designer, Sega says the challenge is “aiming to turn out to be a world hit, primarily within the North American market.” Sega would favor its new lead recreation designer to have expertise in each “automotive recreation manufacturing” and “multiplayer motion battle manufacturing.” The sport is being made in Unreal Engine.
Sega additionally posted a recruitment video (in Japanese) that includes producer Kenji Kanno — the director of the unique recreation — and different builders. Within the video (in accordance with VGC), the builders speak about adapting the traditional Loopy Taxi gameplay for a world with a number of gamers set on a “theme park-like” metropolis map. Temporary work-in-progress clips from the Recreation Awards announcement video present a number of cabs trailing sparks as they drift round a San Francisco-style metropolis.
The information could set off alarm bells about overreach — can a recreation sequence that final noticed a house console launch in 2002 actually assist a “world hit” within the 2020s, nevertheless a lot nostalgia there may be for it? Alternatively, Loopy Taxi’s frantic gameplay and joyously garish type appears nicely suited to a bustling, aggressive on-line world, and would possibly even assist a battle royale-style mode. The thought of a extra over-the-top, arcade-coded rival to the likes of Forza Horizon — or, to place it one other means, a Fortnite on wheels — doesn’t appear so loopy in spite of everything.
The brand new Loopy Taxi — just like the reboots of Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Golden Axe, and Streets of Rage — doesn’t but have a launch date.
