Taxi Life Is The Simulator We Never Knew We Needed

With the intensity of new racing games like Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo, you could be forgiven for just wanting to settle into a relaxed title to wind down with. Well, step into Taxi Life - the simulator we never knew we needed.

As if someone looked at Crazy Taxi and decided to take the ‘Crazy’ out of it, Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is pretty much what it says on the tin.

Set in a 1:1 version of Barcelona, the game has you running your own taxi firm and taking on fares for yourself - with 286 miles of road to familiarise yourself with. The trailer reveals the game will have at least four fictional cars to pick from, each being customisable.

Details on features the game will include are quite thin for now. Still, the trailer reveals a seemingly in-depth management system that will allow you to hire employees and even set their shift hours, as well as take care of refuelling (and recharging in the case of EVs) your own taxi on the job. You’ll be able to interact with your own passengers too, seemingly through a series of on-screen dialogue prompts (try not to get too political).

We’ll have to play it for ourselves to find out how much the game leans into the simulation aspect, but the fact you can map a clutch to your controller suggests it does so somewhat heavily. Hopefully, it’ll have decent wheel support in that case.

French game publisher Nacon, which is behind Taxi Life, has some serious pedigree in the racing world behind it. It was responsible for the WRC games before Codemasters took the reigns this year, and publishes the TT: Isle of Man series of bike racers.

Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator will be released in February 2024 on PC. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles.