Preview: Crazy Taxi and Stuntman are back and just as good as ever

Domagoj Belancic

2.9.2026

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Two legendary arcade racing game series are making their comeback at Gamescom. I tried out Crazy Taxi World Tour and Stuntman: Hollywood. Racing around, causing chaos and beating high scores is still just as much fun as it used to be.

Things were better back in the day. All right, not everything. But back in the 2000s, there were tons of cool arcade racing games like Crazy Taxi and Stuntman about.

Fans of these series have been left high and dry for a long time – the last mainline instalments of both racing games came out nearly 20 years ago. Stuntman Ignition was released in 2007 for PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars was released in 2007 for the PSP. Ever since then, there’s been nothing but junk mobile games, which are no longer available.

But in 2027, both games will make their big comebacks. My demo sessions at Gamescom are already making me look forward to next year with a sense of nostalgic anticipation.

Crazy Taxi: World Tour – around the world

In the Gamescom demo, I race through a fictional small town on the newly announced Germany map. In the finished version, I’ll embark on a trip around the world, visiting five cities across the globe. Apart from Germany, only one sunny West Coast map has been confirmed so far – based on San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The medium-sized Germany map consists of five regions. I explore an airport, mountains with a beautiful castle on top, a modern neighbourhood and an idyllic old town with historic buildings. A highway connects the individual map areas to one another.

Visually, Crazy Taxi already looks pretty solid. Germany is extremely diverse and full of stereotypes. Upon closer inspection, I notice some blurry textures and ugly, generic NPCs. During normal gameplay (i.e. tearing through the streets at full speed), however, I don’t notice these negative details. The game runs smoothly, and Sega still has a little time before launch to tweak the visuals – hopefully without using generative AI tools.

Compared to the Dreamcast classics, the core arcade gameplay in Crazy Taxi: World Tour has been meaningfully expanded. I can explore Germany at my own pace, without feeling rushed. I start the classic arcade missions by pulling over next to a passenger. Then the old-school Crazy Taxi gameplay loop begins with a time limit: transport a passenger, earn tips by pulling off crazy stunts and race quickly to the next person. When the timer hits zero, the score is tallied and I can see if I’ve beaten my high score.

Once I’m done with the arcade section, I’m not sent back to the main menu; instead, I stay on the map and continue exploring it as I please. There are plenty of challenges to discover, such as checkpoint races and time-attack events, which bring even more money into my taxi driver’s coffers.

The highlight of the demo, however, is the numerous special jobs on the map. Some customers in Germany don’t just want to be transported from point A to point B; they have specific requests I need to fulfil. Some of my favourites:

• I drive a passenger to the airport while we’re being chased by the police. In the end, the customer jumps out of the moving car and right into an aeroplane that’s just taking off.
• A wingsuit pilot wants me to floor it towards the castle in the mountains and then slam on the brakes so that he gets thrown as far as possible out of the car and can glide across the map.
• A garbage collector has to collect as much paper and cardboard as possible. So I drive through the city with her, smashing recycling bins as she sucks up their contents with an oversized vacuum cleaner.

The arcade controls already feel great during every activity – and anything but realistic. I drift around corners like Vin Diesel until my car bursts into flames, activate the nitro, jump over obstacles and stop with pinpoint precision exactly where I’m needed. I’m a pro! Or, as happens much more often: I brake too late and run right over everything and everyone – sorry!

Thanks to the combo meter, driving feels like I’m playing a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game. I love seeing higher and higher numbers flash across the screen as I break high scores. It’s fun, addictive – it all feels like I’ve been transported back to the year 2000, when I played the first Crazy Taxi on a friend’s Dreamcast until I was sick of it. The old-school soundtrack, featuring tracks like All I Want by The Offspring, evokes even more nostalgia.

Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya!

I’m really excited to see what crazy ideas await me in the finished game. Something else that’s still worrying me: how much content will there be per stop on my trip around the world? With only five maps, I’m expecting cities bursting at the seams with countless missions and challenges. The content in the Germany demo was a solid start – but by no means enough.

• When: 2027
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC

Stuntman: Hollywood – a brilliant twist

I also have nostalgic feelings associated with Stuntman. Funnily enough, back in the day, I played the game mostly on the Game Boy Advance, not on the bigger consoles. The 3D graphics were a technical sensation by the standards of handheld devices at the time.

Not much has changed in terms of gameplay in the latest instalment. I take on the role of a stuntman and drive through hair-raising courses in a car or on a motorcycle. A camera crew films me while I do this. At the end of a level, the director evaluates my performance.

The brilliant twist in Stuntman: Hollywood? Tracks are no longer based on fictional movies, but on real films – including iconic cars. The following have been confirmed so far:

Fast & Furious

Miami Vice

Back to the Future

Death Race (what the heck is Death Race?!)

Knight Rider

Earthquake

Jurassic World

For each movie, there will be several episodes in the finished game. In the Gamescom demo, I first go through a generic intro familiarising me with the controls. Just like in Crazy Taxi, the way the vehicles handle has nothing to do with reality. The physics and controls are designed to let you pull off the most spectacular stunts possible – and that’s great!

After the short intro, I race through one episode each of Fast & Furious, Miami Vice, Earthquake and Jurassic World. Across the linear levels, I have to master predefined actions and stunts with perfect timing. I narrowly miss obstacles, drift around turns, ride slalom and jump over ramps – and on a motorcycle, I even do front and back flips!

Occasionally, you’ll need to perform specific actions using the Y button. These context-sensitive actions vary depending on the track. In Miami Vice, I blow out a truck’s tyres, and in Jurassic World, I slide my motorcycle under obstacles.

As a massive dinosaur fan, I spend most of my time in the Jurassic World episode, trying to get a perfect run there. And that’s exactly what makes Stuntman: Hollywood so appealing. I completely mess up my first run, crash a few times and speed right through the holographically projected dinosaurs. With every new attempt, I get to know the track and its stunts better, improving my performance. Just one more round. Then another. Then another.

The only thing that annoyed me during my trial run was the director, who kept yelling instructions in my ear as I made my way through the track. He repeats himself too often. Especially when he critiques me, his over-the-top Spanish accent really gets on my nerves.

Other than that, I have no complaints. If Saber Interactive manages to offer enough exciting content at launch, we’re in for another successful comeback of a classic arcade racing game.

• When: 2027
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Domagoj Belancic

Senior Editor

Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.ch

My love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.

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