It didn’t take long, but it happened to me. Less than a week after PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk wrote about how these gaming trailer livestreams would start to have their hype trains robbed and wrecked by AI disclosures, I saw it. Crazy Taxi: World Tour, a game I was reasonably excited for, was made with help from generative AI.
“At Sega Corporation, we utilize generative AI as a support tool for developers, aiming to provide better content to our users and enable developers to focus more on creative tasks,” the game’s Steam page reads. “No AI was used in reference to the performers in the game.”
I assume that last bit is referring specifically to voice work. Game Informer’s Brian Shea got an expanded statement from Sega which he posted on Bluesky. It includes the extra line, “Assets generated were still subject to review by the development team.” It’s still a bit vague, but suggests that it was used to create art and not only as a coding assistant.
Fans on social media are not happy. “Using AI slop to make shit for you, more like Lazy Taxi,” wrote mat-draws on Bluesky. It’s quickly becoming the thing to say. “Lazy Taxi,” concurred Bluesky user tehsnakerer. “Lazy Taxi,” mused mluckas, also on Bluesky. On Reddit, user RORSCHACH_INC_ commented, “Know what… think I’ll just walk home.”
It’s perhaps especially galling given the faux-counterculture aesthetics Crazy Taxi has always wrapped itself in, blaring pop punk as you try not to crash into the nearest KFC. The AI use, combined with the fact that this is apparently an open world campaign-driven game that takes you across five different cities, suggests that a Crazy Taxi game in 2027 is a very different prospect to the 1999 arcade classic.
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