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Taxi Driver
April 11, 2026 at 01:48 PM
Expand with Co-Ex Test feedback, rewards table, district coverage, vehicle system integration, and additional tips
Taxi Driver is one of three part-time jobs available in Neverness to Everness, alongside barista work and delivery. Players earn Fon by picking up passengers and delivering them to destinations across Hethereau. The job combines the game's full vehicle mechanics with a service-oriented gameplay loop, offering a way to earn currency while exploring the city. Taxi driving is part of the Hethereau Hobbies system and contributes to City Tycoon level progression.
Players begin taxi shifts by interacting with taxi dispatch points located throughout the city. During a shift, passenger requests appear on the map. The player drives to pick up each passenger, then follows a route to their requested destination. Payment is calculated based on distance traveled and delivery speed.
The taxi job uses the full vehicle mechanics system. This means all driving physics apply during taxi shifts, including acceleration, braking, collision detection, and traffic interaction. Players drive through Hethereau's streets alongside regular traffic, obeying (or ignoring) traffic rules as they see fit.
The weather system directly affects taxi driving. Rain makes road surfaces slippery, increasing the risk of losing control during turns and reducing braking effectiveness. Snow affects traction and alters drift behavior, requiring more cautious driving on winter routes.
These weather effects create variety across taxi shifts. A route that is straightforward on a clear day becomes more challenging and engaging during a rainstorm, since vehicle handling responds differently to wet and icy road surfaces.
Passengers are NPCs who request rides to various locations across the city. Each passenger has a destination displayed on the map, and the player chooses which fares to accept during a shift.
Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
Tips | Passengers may offer tips on top of the base fare for smooth or fast rides. Careful driving that avoids collisions and rough handling tends to result in higher tip amounts. |
Dialogue | Passengers occasionally share dialogue during rides. Some conversations provide lore hints about Hethereau's neighborhoods and characters, while others may reference side quest leads or local events. |
Route Variety | Destinations span all of Hethereau's districts, sending players to areas they might not otherwise explore during regular gameplay. |
Taxi driving pays Fon on a per-trip basis. Income is determined by the distance of each fare and whether the passenger provides a tip. Over a full shift, the accumulated Fon makes taxi driving a reliable income source, especially early in the game before shop revenue from business management scales up.
Additional rewards include:
Contribution toward daily and weekly activity milestones
City Tycoon level progression from completing taxi shifts
Familiarity with Hethereau's street layout, which benefits navigation in all other activities
NTE offers three part-time jobs, each with a different gameplay style:
Job | Gameplay | Key Mechanic |
|---|---|---|
Taxi Driver | Driving passengers across the city | Vehicle handling, weather conditions, route navigation |
Barista | Preparing and serving drinks at a cafe | Time-pressure mini-game, order memorization |
Delivery | Transporting packages within time limits | Careful driving (fragile goods penalty), route planning |
The delivery job is thematically connected to Sterry Express, the in-game courier organization that employs characters like Hathor and Haniel. Taxi driving is more free-form in comparison, letting the player choose which fares to accept and which routes to take.
All three part-time jobs feed into the City Tycoon progression system. Completing taxi shifts earns City Tycoon experience alongside Fon income. As the City Tycoon level increases, players unlock additional hobbies, business options, and housing features. For new players, part-time jobs like taxi driving are among the earliest and most accessible ways to start building City Tycoon progression.
Traffic violations during taxi shifts can increase the player's wanted level. Running red lights, hitting pedestrians, or causing vehicle damage while carrying a passenger all count as criminal acts within the game's crime system. Getting arrested during a taxi shift ends the shift immediately, and the player must deal with the consequences of detention before resuming work.
Drive carefully to earn passenger tips. Smooth rides without collisions or sudden stops result in higher per-trip income.
Pay attention to passenger dialogue. Some conversations hint at side activities or lore details that are not available elsewhere.
The taxi job is one of the best ways to learn Hethereau's street layout early in the game, since it sends you to all districts.
During rain or snow, slow down on turns. The weather-affected handling that applies to all driving is particularly punishing when carrying a passenger with a tip on the line.
Taxi driving pairs well with exploration goals. Accept fares heading toward areas where you have undiscovered collectibles or unvisited locations.
Taxi driving is built around a simple loop. The player climbs into a taxi, accepts a waiting fare from a nearby NPC, drives the passenger to the destination shown on the map, and collects payment once the passenger steps out. Shifts end when the player chooses to stop, when the character runs out of in-game time for the day, or when something forces the vehicle off the road. During the Co-Ex Test held from February 6 to February 20, 2026, the activity was one of several urban jobs available alongside fishing, racing, barista work, Mahjong, rhythm mini-games, and the Pink Paws Heist.
Unlike a timed delivery, taxi shifts let the player balance speed against passenger comfort. The game tracks how smoothly the ride goes, so keeping the vehicle on the road and avoiding sudden stops matters as much as reaching the destination. This ties the activity directly into the wider vehicles system, because every handling quirk of the taxi you are driving carries over into the job.
Taxi driving is part of the part-time jobs set, which sits inside the broader Hethereau hobbies framework. The job becomes available once the player has completed the early story beats that introduce open-world travel in Hethereau and has access to a drivable taxi vehicle. Players who followed the main path during the Co-Ex Test typically reached the taxi activity within the first few hours of play, since the game intentionally surfaces city jobs as part of the new-player urban loop.
Once unlocked, the job can be picked up repeatedly, making it a dependable fixture in the player's daily routine. It slots naturally between combat, exploration, and other side activities and mini-games, giving the player a reason to use the city's roads even when there is no urgent story objective.
Fares are generated dynamically as the player drives through the city. NPCs waiting at pickup points flag down the taxi, and each fare comes with a stated destination on the minimap. The route between pickup and drop-off is left to the player, so taking shortcuts through side streets, following main avenues, or detouring to avoid traffic all become valid strategies.
Fare length varies. Short cross-block hops pay less but finish quickly, while long cross-district trips pay more and let the player rack up extra tips by driving smoothly over a longer distance. Since Hethereau is a large open world, taxi routes end up doubling as an organic tour of the city's layout.
Taxi shifts pay the player in Fons, the free-to-earn soft currency that can be spent on cosmetics and various in-game services. Longer and smoother rides can also generate Beetle Coins or other reward items tied to the hobby system. The exact payout depends on distance, tip quality, and whether the shift is part of an active event rotation.
Reward | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Base fare per completed trip | Primary soft currency for cosmetics, dyes, and daily services | |
Passenger tips | Smooth driving bonus | Added on top of base fare when collisions and sudden stops are avoided |
Event rotations and milestone rewards | Premium-track currency also granted through pre-registration and login events | |
City Tycoon experience | Completed shifts | Feeds into the City Tycoon progression track shared by all part-time jobs |
Hobby progression | Repeated shifts | Contributes to the Hethereau hobbies system alongside other urban activities |
Because the payout structure overlaps with other currencies earned elsewhere in the game, taxi driving should be treated as a steady background income rather than the fastest path to any single currency. It works best when the player wants to earn money while doing something else, such as scouting new neighborhoods or waiting for a daily reset.
Taxi driving is the clearest showcase of the game's open-world driving layer. The activity uses the same handling model, the same traffic AI, and the same pedestrian rules that apply to every other drivable car, so improving your general driving skill pays off directly on the job. The vehicle list includes the taxi alongside other cars that can be summoned, requisitioned, or purchased through the vehicle requisition system.
Players who enjoy driving can also invest in vehicle customization to tune their personal cars for the kind of trips they take on the job. While customized personal cars are not always used for fares, the skills and feel transfer cleanly. Taxi driving also shares a lot of its control space with street racing, another urban activity that leans on the same vehicle mechanics.
Taxi fares are not confined to a single neighborhood. Over the course of a shift, the player can expect trips that move across the main divisions of Hethereau, which makes the job one of the fastest ways to learn the city. The table below groups the general kinds of areas a driver tends to encounter during urban trips.
Area Type | What to Expect |
|---|---|
Central city streets | Heavy traffic, frequent red lights, short to medium fare distances |
Residential blocks | Narrower roads, more pedestrians, lower-paying but frequent fares |
Commercial and shopping zones | Busy pickup points near stores and plazas, steady fare flow throughout the day |
Highways and outer ring roads | Longer trips, higher tip ceilings, room to push speed when traffic allows |
Waterfront and scenic routes | Slower scripted traffic, good for building tip multipliers through smooth driving |
Covering this spread of areas is useful beyond the job itself. The routes overlap with locations used by story quests, side activities and mini-games, and routine daily tasks, so a few shifts of taxi work often double as a scouting run for other goals.
Taxi driving was one of the urban activities players could try during the Co-Ex Test between February 6 and February 20, 2026. After the test ended, Hotta Studio released a developer letter thanking participants and outlining priority areas for improvement before the global launch on April 29, 2026.
The letter specifically flagged driving controls as an area that needed refinement. Player feedback described the handling and camera behavior as stiff in places, and the developers confirmed that driving controls were "next in line" for fixes, alongside social features, translations, and technical polish. Because taxi driving leans heavily on the core driving layer, any improvements to vehicle handling, camera sensitivity, and overall road feel will land directly in this activity.
The developer response is worth noting for players who tried the test and felt the taxi job was rougher than expected. The launch version of the activity is expected to benefit from the same driving polish being applied to the vehicles system as a whole, so the first impression at launch is likely to be smoother than what Co-Ex Test players experienced.
Use taxi shifts to practice before attempting street racing. The calmer pace of a paid fare is a good place to internalize turn radius, braking distance, and camera behavior.
Keep an eye on your wanted level while on the clock. A fare does not pause the crime system, so reckless driving with a passenger on board is one of the fastest ways to attract police attention.
Rotate taxi shifts with other part-time jobs across the day. Different jobs feed into different progression tracks, and the variety keeps the daily loop from feeling repetitive.
If you want to invest long-term in driving content, start building toward vehicle customization early. Better personal cars improve the feel of every drive, even though most fares are taken in a dedicated taxi vehicle.
Players returning after the Co-Ex Test should give the activity a second chance at launch. The Hotta Studio wrap letter explicitly prioritized driving improvements, so the taxi loop is one of the systems most likely to feel different between the test and the 1.0 release.
