Sega goes by means of a type 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 authentic Tremendous Monkey Ball recreation in a decade. On the Recreation Awards final December, the corporate introduced an initiative to carry 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 collection.
That was a fan-pleasing transfer, although many questioned how (or, certainly, whether or not) Sega supposed to make these video games related for a contemporary viewers. We now have a partial reply, so far as Loopy Taxi is anxious.
Sega is transferring to workers up the event workforce making the brand new Loopy Taxi, and in a series of job adverts, the sport is persistently 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 game designer, Sega says the challenge is “aiming to turn out to be a worldwide hit, primarily within the North American market.” Sega would like its new lead recreation designer to have expertise in each “automobile 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 (based on VGC), the builders discuss adapting the traditional Loopy Taxi gameplay for a world with a number of gamers set on a “theme park-like” metropolis map. Transient 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 might set off alarm bells about overreach — can a recreation collection that final noticed a house console launch in 2002 actually assist a “world hit” within the 2020s, nonetheless a lot nostalgia there may be for it? Then again, 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 approach, 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.