Let's just pretend the PS2-era games never happened.

June 22, 2020 9:01 AM

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time [Game Trailer] “After a more than 20-year wait, a true sequel to 1998’s Crash Bandicoot: Warped is coming to PS4 and Xbox One on October 2nd. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time picks up decades after the events of Warped, back when you defeated antagonists Neo Cortex, Dr. N. Tropy, and Uka Uka and left them stranded on a distant planet. The sequel picks up with the trio escaping, resulting in a rip in the fabric of space and time. Taking inspiration from the original PlayStation trilogy, the game will be a platformer; the trailer shows that we’ll still be spinning and jumping our way through enemies and over bottomless pits while also collecting Wumpa fruits. But it will also add new gameplay mechanics to refresh the classic formula, such as wall running, rope swinging, rail grinding, and Quantum Masks, which appear to allow the fuzzy marsupials to run on the ceiling or slow down time.” [via: The Verge]

• Crash Bandicoot 4 is on its way, at last [Polygon]

“Polygon spoke to Paul Yan, co-studio head at Toys for Bob, about the upcoming game. “We deliberately called this game Crash 4,” Yan said, “because we want to position this as a true sequel to the original three games, which were developed by Naughty Dog. There’s something really, really special about those first three games, and you could see that reflected both critically and commercially.” Crash Bandicoot 4’s story will involve Neo Cortex, Dr. N. Tropy, and Uka Uka ripping a hole in the fabric of space-time in order to escape from their remote planet. Coco and Crash will push back against that villainy “with the help of four new quantum masks,” according to Yan. “These are the guardians of the universe. They’re going to be able to restore balance to this multiverse, this fractured time that’s now taking place in this universe. And these quantum masks are going to also be introducing completely new ways of platforming.” [...] “Yes, the original games were hard,” Yan said. “They were very, very challenging. And I think one thing that was really important for us was to make sure that we preserve that level of challenge without watering it down in such a way that we lose that authentic Crash gameplay that’s all about precision platforming. The way that we think about that is in making sure that it’s a subtle way of rolling out the challenges. [...] We’ll layer on that challenge very specifically and ramp those across the levels further down the road in a linear fashion. We want to make sure that those challenges rely on lessons that you’ve learned before.””

• Precision platforming is at the heart of 'It's About Time.' [Engadget]

“Three years after Activision revived Crash Bandicoot with updated versions of the original three games, the orange critter is back with his first brand new adventure since 2008. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time (get it?) is a direct sequel to that PlayStation 1 trilogy, forgoing The Wrath of Cortex and all of the other main-series games since then. There are a few reasons for that. For one thing, “the N. Sane Trilogy is freshest in everyone’s mind, so continuing off that felt very organic,” Paul Yan, chief creative officer and co-studio lead for developer Toys For Bob, told Engadget in an interview. The Activision-owned studio handled the well-received Spyro Reignited Trilogy and ports of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Crash 4 picks up some time after the events of Crash Bandicoot: Warped. Decades after Neo Cortex, Dr. N. Tropy and Uka Uka were stranded on a distant planet, the villains manage to escape but leave a giant hole in the space-time fabric. They’ll try once again to rule the multiverse, but a certain pair of marsupials will have something to say about that. Crash (and Coco) have indeed had a bit of a resurgence over the last few years, given the trilogy and Crash Team Racing remasters, as well as a cameo in Uncharted 4. But all of those, even the surprise appearance in a Nathan Drake game, are rooted in the ‘90s. Gameplay mechanics, level design and platforms’ graphical power have come a long way since then, so Toys For Bob faced a bit of a challenge in bringing the franchise up to date while retaining the essence of Crash.”

posted by Fizz (1 comment total)

I've been a PC-only gamer for a while now and have managed to avoid buying an eighth generation console for *checks watch* coming on seven years now, but between this and the Final Fantasy VII remake I am sorely tempted.

I remember when I got the original Playstation as a kid (back when, as with monarchs, there was no need to number them if there was no successor with the same name), which came bundled with Crash Bandicoot 2. I filled in the market research survey that came with the console, sent it back in the mail and was hugely surprised some months later when I received a copy of Crash Team Racing as a prize for filling in the survey. Even at the age of eight or so I knew that my odds of winning any kind of TV or merchandising promotion were slim, so it was a genuine delight to win CTR, and at a time in my life when console games were birthday-or-Christmas-or-two-months-of-pocket-money expensive.
posted by terretu at 9:20 AM on June 22, 2020 [1 favorite]