SEGA is promising new energy for a new era with their Game Awards announcement of upcoming Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and Crazy Taxi games.
Yes, this exciting announcement came as part of The Game Awards, which took place in Los Angeles last night. That event celebrated this year’s best in video games, as well as allowing major developers to preview upcoming projects.
Most of the games previewed would be current generation titles that do not fall under the retro banner. So imagine our excitement to see the familiar SEGA logo come on screen with the “NEW ERA NEW ENERGY” slogan.
Needless to say, this was a highlight of the event for all of us at Retro Dodo. So let’s dig into it!
Table of Contents
Jet Set Radio
The new game play teaser from Sega started with wild footage from the new Jet Set Radio game. And it looks as fun and stylish as you would hope for.
This was the only game from the new lineup that we had caught wind of earlier this year, which we broke down here. And in today’s leak culture, it is very surprising that so many of these games have been such well kept secrets.
But surely you’d agree that it is way more satisfying to be caught by surprise with a really cool new game rather than hearing every little detail about it from the nonstop rumour mill.
Finally seeing real footage of the next Jet Set Radio was very fulfilling, and we cannot wait to lace up our skates and tear through the city in this new game.
The modern graphics make Jet Set Radio absolutely pop, and everything about this game is looking pretty sweet. And this was just the start!
Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Golden Axe
The Sega teaser continued with quick glimpses at some game franchises we haven’t heard from in a long time. And all of these were major surprises as the popped up on our screens.
In fact, it took us a few seconds to start making the connections in our brain to know exactly what franchise we were looking at!
Streets of Rage in particular looked so unique and such an interesting take on the original classic for the modern era.
We did have a recent entry in this franchise, with Streets of Rage 4 releasing in 2020, leveraging a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge style.
And that really shouldn’t be much of a surprise, since both games have similar roots in the beat ’em up genre and from the same era.
But this new entry for Streets of Rage has gone way more modern and has a brand new aesthetic that we are absolutely loving.
It does appear to take place in a full 3D environment rather than that familiar beat ’em up platforming style. And this new direction feels just perfect for the Streets of Rage IP.
Whatever the game ends up being, it certainly fits within contemporary gaming and we’re loving what we see so far.
Shinobi Tears Into The World Of Modern Gaming
Shinobi certainly looked interesting as well, with elements of Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Okami throw into the old formula to make it fresh.
The last we had seen from this franchise was Shinobi 3D back in 2011, and this new teaser shows a major evolution for the series.
The dynamic backgrounds with massive environments and ominous figures in the distance create an intriguing world. And it has us questioning whether or not we will have to actually fight those things at some point!
This new Shinobi title certainly has the makings of a future addition to a best platforming list here on Retro Dodo. Time will tell, of course.
Golden Axe Gets A Glow Up
Then we had Golden Axe, which was VERY different from what we know the original title to be.
This new imagining took the series into full 3d action with elements of Baldur’s Gate 3 or even current era Doom. The level of intensity in this short preview was high!
We’ve certainly never seen Golden Axe look anything remotely similar to what we are seeing today. And this teaser absolutely has me eager to experience it for myself as soon as possible.
Crazy Taxi
And then, of course, the short teaser closes the show with a new entry in the Crazy Taxi franchise. It would seem that they saved the best for last, because this game is looking absolutely wild!
If you’re familiar with Crazy Taxi, you probably know what to expect. But it has been over twenty years since we have seen a true entry in the franchise (we don’t count those mobile adaptations).
And surely you would agree that there has been some incredible evolution and the Crazy Taxi IP works very well for a contemporary video game.
They took everything that we know and love about the original games, added a little Grand Theft Auto, perhaps took some inside inspiration from what they were doing with the new Jet Set Radio, and it all resulted in something that looks like a heck of a lot of fun.
This was a personal highlight of the entire Sega teaser, and it’s the game I’m most looking forward to seeing in the future.
Impressions
Sega has absolutely crushed it with their new teaser video. Not a single weak link in the lineup. And we’re dying to see more from each and every one of the games included.
No word on when that will be exactly, but we expect to be hearing more in the coming year and possibly even a few of them to be released in 2024.
And we still don’t even know what the “AND MORE” portion of their bullet point list includes. So there is a lot to look forward to from SEGA in the future.
