In recent years, Sega has limited its involvement in the video game world, focusing on key projects and taking fewer chances with new IPs. With a franchise like Yakuza finding a solid gap in the market, and Sonic always doing very well, the company already has more than a few breadwinners. The company’s slower, conservative approach of late is why it came as a big surprise that Sega was going to be putting their name to a new Crazy Taxi-styled game called Taxi Chaos, but it has recently been revealed that this might not be totally accurate.

Taxi Chaos appears to be trying to recapture the vibe of the amazing 2000 Dreamcast game, with child-like cartoonish graphics, fast-paced and high-flying, reckless driving action sim. While the original Crazy Taxi still holds up pretty well to this day, it has been quite some time since there has been a new console release for the franchise, the last being Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller, way back on the original Xbox.

There were a lot of things the Dreamcast did that were freakishly ahead of its time, one of which was being that the console was able to bring the arcade experience of a game like Crazy Taxi to players at home. While arcade-style games have fallen off the market for a while now, back in 2000, having an arcade-like experience at home was impressive.

With the huge resurgence that Sonic has experienced recently after years of being one of the internet’s favourite memes, the idea that Sega might try to revitalise more franchises does sound appealing. Sonic’s return to the spotlight is a bit more predictable than the return of the Crazy Taxi arcade genre, however, as the massive fanbase for Sonic would attest. While Sega might consider reviving something like Crazy Taxi, the company has made it clear that it has no part in the making of Taxi Chaos.