Goodbye Pizza Hut, hello Five Guys? Here’s some of the new real-life shops we’ve spotted in Crazy Taxi World Tour
The first game was famous for featuring real brands, and the reboot has more
After nearly two and a half decades, a brand new Crazy Taxi game is finally coming next year.
A trailer for Sega‘s reboot was revealed during Sunday’s Xbox Games Showcase, confirming that it will be called Crazy Taxi: World Tour and will be released in 2027.
While the trailer also hinted that the player will be travelling to numerous cities around the world (hence the game’s name), all of the footage focused on gameplay taking place in the city from the original Crazy Taxi.
This city, which was later titled West Coast in sequels, is clearly based on San Francisco and has lots of steep jumps, cable cars and a bay area.
One thing the city also had when it appeared in the original Crazy Taxi was a number of shops and restaurants based on real-life brands, something that was still a novelty when it was released back in 1999.
Fans of the game still fondly remember the presence of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut restaurants in the game, as well as shops like Tower Records, Levi and Fila.
VGC was recently shown the game running behind closed doors at Summer Game Fest – our preview coverage is coming later – and spotted a number of new brands in the West Coast city.
It should be noted that while we didn’t spot any of the shops from the original game, that doesn’t mean they aren’t in here.
What we did spot on the game’s map, however, are the following real-life shops and restaurants:
- Five Guys
- Menchie’s Frozen Yoghurt
- Amoeba Music
- Panda Express
- Pressed Juicery
- Funko
Given that this isn’t an exhaustive list of the entire map, and given that the game will see the player travelling to other locations around the world, it’s likely that more brands will feature (potentially including the return of those from the original game).
This is at least evidence, however, that one of the fan-favourite elements from the original game is returning for Crazy Taxi World Tour with a refreshed list of shops.
The Crazy Taxi reboot is being developed by Sega’s Sapporo Studio, which was established in December 2021 and helps with the development of various Sega games.
The original Crazy Taxi enjoyed some success as an arcade game in 1999 but became far more popular when a home version was released for the Dreamcast in 2000, ultimately becoming the third best-selling game on the console in the US.
The game has seen several sequels and spin-offs, but the last entirely new main entry in the series was Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller, which was released 24 years ago as an Xbox exclusive.
