The initial excitement of the Crazy Taxi: World Tour announcement was somewhat undercut when fans discovered the game used Generative AI in its development. Now SEGA has provided some details on the matter.
According to Game Informer, who were able to get a statement from SEGA, the use of GenAI was “a support tool for developers, aiming to provide better content to our users and enable developers to focus more on creative tasks.” The statement went on to say, “Generative AI was used to support our teams during the development of background assets for Crazy Taxi: World Tour. Assets generated were still subject to review by the development team. No AI was used in reference to the performers in the game.”
While it is still somewhat vague, it does provide more insight to how GenAI was used than Crazy Taxi: World Tour’s Steam page which disclosed the use of GenAI as: “We have used such generative AI support tools during development of Crazy Taxi: World Tour. No AI was used in reference to the performers in the game,” following the same initial statement that was provided to Game Informer.
While the move is certainly controversial, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. After the publication of its Q2 financial results on December 4th, 2025 SEGA said in a Q&A session that it would invest more in using AI in game development, saying, “Rather than fully following the trend toward the large-scale development, we will also pursue efficiency improvements, such as leveraging AI.”
Despite this, fans of the iconic series have expressed some distain that GenAI would be used in a game like Crazy Taxi—whose music, gameplay and general vibe was meant to evoke a sense of counter-culture. In an announcement post by Wari64 on Bluesky, several users left comments saying “AI Slop,” to “Don’t buy,” and “they’re using genai NO NO NO NO NO,” in reference to the games iconic use of the Offspring song “All I Want.”
Crazy Taxi: World Tour was revealed during the XBOX Games Showcase 2026 with a tentative release date for 2027.
