Sega’s newly announced Crazy Taxi: World Tour has stirred not only interest among fans but also fresh historical context about the franchise.
Ahead of the game’s upcoming release, a former Sega Studios Australia developer has revealed that the studio once pitched a project using the same World Tour name in 2009.
That pitch, along with concept artwork found years later, adds a previously underreported chapter to the series’ development history.
Former Sega Studios Australia designer Guy Blomberg published a thread on Twitter/X on June 7, 2026, recounting the studio’s internal pitch.
Blomberg said he was a long-time Crazy Taxi fan and recalled that in 2009 his team prototyped a concept titled Crazy Taxi: World Tour.
The thread received measurable engagement on the platform and was subsequently reported by Segabits.
According to Blomberg’s account, the 2009 proposal centered on a globe-trotting take on Crazy Taxi, featuring stylized, exaggerated districts representing different countries—with landmarks compressed into dense, arcade-style levels to justify the ‘‘World Tour’’ concept.
The pitch included two notable gameplay ideas: a passenger-based modifier system and an ‘‘EJECT’’ action.
Blomberg described the modifier idea as follows: picking up certain passengers would grant unique effects to the vehicle—some purely cosmetic, such as a disco passenger triggering a mirror ball and themed music, and some directly affecting gameplay, like a sumo passenger increasing vehicle weight and altering handling.
He added that multiple passengers’ effects could stack, creating complementary or conflicting modifiers that impacted score multipliers and timers.
The second idea was an ‘‘EJECT’’ button that would dramatically launch fares with ragdoll physics to quickly end a job.
Concept art for a project labeled Crazy Taxi 4 attributed to former Sega artist Brooke Luder appeared on Luder’s portfolio in 2015, and Blomberg confirmed the 2009 pitch and that artwork are linked.
Blomberg also said discussions at Sega Studios Australia followed the release of Stormrise, with multiple pitches submitted internally, including an Olympics tie-in that later evolved into work on London 2012.
When contacted, Luder characterized the Crazy Taxi material as a pitch the studio did not win, rather than a full project that was started and cancelled; studio head George Fidler did not respond to requests for comment.
The new Crazy Taxi: World Tour is confirmed for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam.
The resurfaced 2009 pitch and the later concept art provide historical context to the franchise’s development, illustrating how ideas circulate within studios and sometimes reappear years later in new forms.
Ahead of the game’s upcoming release, a former Sega Studios Australia developer has revealed that the studio once pitched a project using the same World Tour name in 2009.
That pitch, along with concept artwork found years later, adds a previously underreported chapter to the series’ development history.
Former Sega Studios Australia designer Guy Blomberg published a thread on Twitter/X on June 7, 2026, recounting the studio’s internal pitch.
Blomberg said he was a long-time Crazy Taxi fan and recalled that in 2009 his team prototyped a concept titled Crazy Taxi: World Tour.
The thread received measurable engagement on the platform and was subsequently reported by Segabits.
According to Blomberg’s account, the 2009 proposal centered on a globe-trotting take on Crazy Taxi, featuring stylized, exaggerated districts representing different countries—with landmarks compressed into dense, arcade-style levels to justify the ‘‘World Tour’’ concept.
The pitch included two notable gameplay ideas: a passenger-based modifier system and an ‘‘EJECT’’ action.
Blomberg described the modifier idea as follows: picking up certain passengers would grant unique effects to the vehicle—some purely cosmetic, such as a disco passenger triggering a mirror ball and themed music, and some directly affecting gameplay, like a sumo passenger increasing vehicle weight and altering handling.
He added that multiple passengers’ effects could stack, creating complementary or conflicting modifiers that impacted score multipliers and timers.
The second idea was an ‘‘EJECT’’ button that would dramatically launch fares with ragdoll physics to quickly end a job.
Concept art for a project labeled Crazy Taxi 4 attributed to former Sega artist Brooke Luder appeared on Luder’s portfolio in 2015, and Blomberg confirmed the 2009 pitch and that artwork are linked.
Blomberg also said discussions at Sega Studios Australia followed the release of Stormrise, with multiple pitches submitted internally, including an Olympics tie-in that later evolved into work on London 2012.
When contacted, Luder characterized the Crazy Taxi material as a pitch the studio did not win, rather than a full project that was started and cancelled; studio head George Fidler did not respond to requests for comment.
The new Crazy Taxi: World Tour is confirmed for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam.
The resurfaced 2009 pitch and the later concept art provide historical context to the franchise’s development, illustrating how ideas circulate within studios and sometimes reappear years later in new forms.
