Tokyo Game Show 2026 Previews #2: Persona, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Pico Park, and Stranger Than Heaven

We attended Tokyo Game Show 2026 and tried out some exciting new games! In this article, Brando shares his impressions of Persona 4 Revival, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, Sonic Pico Park, and Stranger Than Heaven. Oops, all Sega/Atlus games! To be fair, they had the biggest area at TGS besides maybe Capcom, with tons of demo booths and a stage for live shows. More 2026 previews here too. All release dates and platforms are official as of September 30, 2026.

Persona 4 Revival

A full remake of Persona 4 Golden, Persona 4 Revival is the perfect starting point for newcomers to the series! Visuals, UI, battles, and events – all reimagined for the modern era. Welcoming to newcomers, yet fresh for fans of the original.

Releases February 18, 2027 on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox, and PC.
Official site: https://www.sega.com/persona/persona-4-revival

Persona 4 is getting the Persona 3 Reload treatment, and it’s looking good It’s sounding good too — like Persona 3 Reload, the soundtrack is getting new songs and new arrangements! Atlus intends to make this the definitive version of the game, based on Persona 4 Golden and including content from Persona 4: The Animation.

The TGS demo started with a story part leading up to an early dungeon, Yukiko’s Castle, and then a section playing through that dungeon, battling monsters and joining up with Chie. There wasn’t any “daily life” part in this demo.

There are a few small quality of life additions, but gameplay proceeds mostly as expected, if you’ve played a modern Persona game. Crawl the dungeon, sneak up on enemies to start the battle at an advantage, find the enemy weak points, and All-Out Attack your way to victory.

Not much else to say here, Persona 4 Revival seems like a no-brainer after the success of Persona 3 Reload and I’m glad to see it turning out well.

Crazy Taxi: World Tour

It’s time for crazy driving, crazy adventure, and crazy money! Crazy Taxi is back and going global! In this new high-octane adventure, follow Axel as he chases down the mysterious masked villains who stole his beloved taxi. Tackle extreme missions around the world all while earning some CRAZY money!

Releases in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox, and PC.
Official site: https://www.sega.com/crazy-taxi/crazy-taxi-world-tour

The first major game in the series since 2002, Crazy Taxi: World Tour was crazy fun!

You drive around town as Axel, picking people up and delivering them to their destinations as fast as possible, making crazy money and doing crazy stunts while listening to The Offspring and Bad Religion. Your car has some crazy moves, like starting and stopping on a dime, and hitting the boost button once your nitro gauge is charged.

Aside from the “free taxi” mode there were specific missions available, like racing some weirdo’s souped up dream car, or taking Albrecht the ballet dance enthusiast around town while doing as many crazy drift moves as possible.

The World Tour demo was a very pure score attack experience, like other Crazy Taxi games. There’s no epic cutscenes or melodramatic story sequences, just mission-based gameplay that pits your driving skills against the clock. Rides are short enough that they leave you thinking “just one more, just one more”, and if you fail a mission you can retry it immediately or go practice before returning to it later. Overall, this is a game that knows it’s a game and embraces that, full throttle.

SONIC PICO PARK

The co-op action puzzle game series PICO PARK is back… and this time, we’re teaming up with SEGA’s legendary Sonic the Hedgehog! This collaboration is packed with co-op gameplay that combines the flair of Sonic with the puzzle teamwork fun of PICO PARK! Play locally or online with 2 to 8 players!

Releases November 12, 2026 on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox, and PC.
Official site: https://picoparkgame.com/en/spp/

Pico Park is a wonderful, whimsical, cooperative puzzle action game for 2-8 players, either locally or online. It’s very simple, pick up and play, good for parties. This newest entry is a collaboration with Sonic the Hedgehog, so levels feature many iconic gameplay elements from the Sonic series!

The Sonic character abilities added some fun twists to the usual Pico Park puzzle-solving. For example, Sonic and Shadow can charge up the classic spin dash move, to run up curved walls in a flash. Or, one player can transform into Tails to helicopter other players across gaps. I didn’t get to try Knuckles or Amy in this ~4 level demo, but it was a lot of fun even with random people, so I’m looking forward to the full release next month!

Stranger Than Heaven

The latest project by RGG Studio, the team behind the Yakuza games. A fifty-year, action-adventure saga of men with nowhere to go and their desperate struggle to find a home. Use extreme violence to survive, and musical talent to thrive as a showman across five cities and eras of modern Japan.

Releases January 15, 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and PC.
Official site: https://www.sega.com/stranger-than-heaven

No Tokyo Game Show is complete without a new demo from RGG Studio. Their newest title is surprisingly not Yakuza, though it looks very similar at first glance.

The Stranger Than Heaven demo takes place in three different times and places in historical Japan. The first obvious difference with the Yakuza games is that there were almost no sideshows or minigames on display. I found a few shops, and some grass and smoked cigarettes on the ground, but most side areas were gated by “Visit this area in the full version of the game” walls. The main attraction of this demo was the combat, one fight in each of the three featured areas.

How was the combat? A bit weird, to be honest. The left and right shoulder buttons/triggers are used for actions that correspond roughly to the left and right side of your body. For example, left bumper for a left arm punch, or right trigger for a stronger and slower right leg kick. It sounds almost like QWOP, but I didn’t really build a strong association with left/right in my mind. I just tried each of the buttons to see how the attacks differed.

Enemies (and you) also have a stagger meter. If your guard gets broken, you’ll need a few seconds to recover, or get knocked to the ground where you can either mash A to get up, or roll to the side to avoid incoming attacks. Instead of getting new weapons from the environment or from switching fighting styles, you just have them on hand and can swap between them at any time, at least in the demo. They don’t seem to break — I used a big steel bar for the entire second fight. The third and most difficult fight was against an old drunk man with a katana, so I felt it only fair for me to unsheath mine as well.

Maybe the combat didn’t fully “click” for me, but it didn’t seem that much different from Yakuza combat in the end. A bit slower and heavier, but I could still down a rice ball mid-fight to recover, and button mashing carried me through most of the easier encounters. The third fight was a little trickier, but mainly because it was hard to judge when and whether an attack would go through or not. Sometimes the skinny old guy with a sword could just super armor through my big charged up kick while doing his own sword attack, which wouldn’t get canceled, and vice versa. Overall I’m on the fence. I think I’d be more interested if I could see more of the story, or explore more of the historical Japan surrounding the fights. I could just need more time with it though — and props to the team for trying something new.

That’s all for this year’s previews! This was supposed to be the first year of a 5 day long Tokyo Game Show, but the 5th day got canceled due to a typhoon. They’re trying again in 2027 though, so let me know in the comments if there’s an upcoming title or series you’re interested in, and I’ll try to check it out next year!