Sega Is Reviving Five Game Properties…Maybe Six

The problem with the game industry releasing 10,000 trailers at the same time, as they did last weekend during the Game Awards, is that it all becomes noise, and a lot of developers won’t get quite as MUCH attention as they hoped. But when I think back on that noisy night a few days ago, a few things managed to stick out, and one was Sega announcing FIVE games based on their classic properties, out of nowhere.

Don’t you hate it when game studios that have been around for a while just sit on a beloved series instead of doing anything with it? That’s not Sega, at least not today. They’re bringing back Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and Crazy Taxi — all five have new installments currently in development. And there may be a sixth!

Jet Set Radio is a skating, rail-grinding game where you’re a rebellious street tagger in a cel-shaded world. Shinobi and Golden Axe are two of Sega’s oldest, having started as side-scrollers in the arcade — one is traditionally an action platformer starring a ninja, while the other lets you transform into ancient warriors and fight mythic beasts. Crazy Taxi put a new spin on car games by turning them into mission-based open worlds, with the goal of getting from one place to another as quickly as possible. The only series on this list that has seen any action lately is the brawler Streets of Rage, which was licensed out to another company for SoR 4.

The sixth series Sega is thinking about reviving is Virtua Fighter, which staked its claim to fame by being one of the first 3D polygonal fighting games in existence. Since it was so early, the characters look like abstract angular statues today, but its characters received graphical glow-ups in the sequels. The last Virtual Fighter game was VF 5 in 2006 (it was sort of remade in 2021, but we’re not counting it).

“We are evaluating right now. Virtua Fighter doesn’t use so many tricks, special moves like in Street Fighter, it’s very realistic,” said Sega of America CEO Shuji Utsumi. “How can we make it more dramatic? It’s something we’re working on.”

It’s nice to see a company recognize the value of its brands and respect the wishes of its fanbase for once. So….how about a new Skies of Arcadia?