Sega's Jet Set Radio Deserves A Better Reboot Than A Battle Royale

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Sega's recently announced plans to revive the Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi franchises as battle royales leave a lot to be desired, especially Jet Set Radio, which deserves something more akin to a proper reboot. Jet Set Radio has only seen a re-release with a modest HD remaster in 2012, and since then, the series has largely been dormant. While it's understandable why Sega may wish to potentially chase the trend started by Fortnite with these new battle royale reboots, it feels like a big mistake to apply it to a franchise like Jet Set Radio.

Jet Set Radio has a cult following with a vocal fan base. The series takes place in the semi-fictional city of Tokyo-to, where gangs of «rudies» — or youths who like to skate through the city and graffiti tag property — compete in turf wars, evading the police and contending with the Rokkaku Corporation. This group seeks to take over the world via a record that can supposedly summon a demon. Fans have latched onto this delightfully nonsensical story, the game's vibrant, cel-shaded art style, and the legendary soundtrack produced and curated by Hideki Naganuma for both the original title and the sequel. However, fans have been clamoring for a new entry (or even a port of the superior sequel, Jet Set Radio Future) for nearly two decades now since the last release on the original Xbox. Unfortunately, those fans had gone largely ignored until 2021, when Sega expressed interest in rebooting Jet Set Radio.

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But to tailor Jet Set Radio for a battle royale audience, a lot of what makes the original title unique would need to be distilled to its simplest form. Creating a battle royale in 2022 means facing off against the stiff