Gone Tomorrow

The Future of Crash Bandicoot

After the release of the Crash Bandicoot: N.Sane Trilogy, thoughts turn to the bandicoot's future. The N.Sane Trilogy proved immensely successful in both its PlayStation 4 release in 2017, then again with its multi-console release in June 2018. With record figures propelling Crash to number #1 in both the UK and Australia for two months solid, will publisher Activision take note? What will the future of Crash Bandicoot be like? Let's take a look at three possibilities...

1: Classic Crash

When I think of Crash Bandicoot, I think of traversing levels away from the camera, side-on and towards the camera in chase sequences. I think of collecting jewels and smashing crates. I think of varied platforming on jetpacks and jetskis in exquisite locations. I think of Crash's sister, Coco, and the battle against Cortex. It's those things that should stay in a future Crash game, no matter what.

Turtle Woods features Crash running from the camera as well as running from left to right.

One approach could be to keep a lot of things similar to the traditional style of gameplay. By this, I mean more linear paths like in the original trilogy with branching paths every now and again. N.Sanity Beach and The Pits do this very well, with you going down both only to smash up all the crates. This gameplay would involve smashing crates and collecting gems, simply put. The N.Sane Trilogy proved it was a formula that still worked in its retro-ness.

N.Sanity Beach featured a branching path, for all your time trial annoyances!

The biggest issues here are that whoever develops it would have to be careful not to make it stale or wide-but-linear like The Wrath of Cortex's Compactor Reactor or Crash of the Titans in general. Twinsanity's Jungle Bungle does a decent job of emulating a good balance, although it could still branch out more. One of the reasons I grew a bit tired of the early naughties Crash was because it didn't evolve enough from the traditional gameplay, and was... worse. If the developers delve down this route, striking a nice balance of linearity and additional paths would work neatly. The best example I can think of is from Vicarious Visions' new downloadable level in Crash Bandicoot 3: WARPED. The level, in question, is called Future Tense.

The Wrath of Cortex's Compactor Reactor had wide, empty paths, where you could just run around enemies.

Future Tense is a level set in the future, but is one in which has multiple paths. These paths don't necessarily re-connect back onto the level's main path, but do offer additional challenges in order to reach death routes or additional crates. For example, instead of heading right, you can jump to an extra conveyor belt floor to your left, avoiding lasers and jumping on porcupine enemies for additional crates. Not only that, but Future Tense takes previously seen obstacles and enemies, but uses them in a new way. It shows Vicarious Visions are masters of using traditional Crash level ideas and jazzing them up in just the right way to keep them fresh. More of these kinds of levels could see a traditional style Crash game really earn its stripes.

Future Tense is a a successful attempt at a new Crash level by Vicarious Visions

2: Open-World Bandicoot

Alternatively, an open-world Crash game would be an answer. Twinsanity showed an option for this from its 'hub' levels, such as the opening area N.Sanity Island, the Iceberg Lab and The Academy of Evil. The hubs had places to explore and puzzles to solve in order to earn coloured gems, amongst other things. The Academy of Evil level even featured football/soccer balls that could be rolled into Nitro crates to grab things from behind them. By using more of these kinds of options and expanding the levels, it's possible to have a more open-world Crash environment.

Twinsanity operated on more open hub areas compared to past Crash games.

Radical Entertainment looked like they were heading down this route with the eventually cancelled Crash Landed. Set to release in 2010, the game saw Crash explore an island map in search of baby bandicoots, using the environment to his advantage. It's actually a great idea, and one in which could work like Naughty Dog's Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (Jak).

Crash Landed (2010) was set to feature more open-world locations for Crash to explore...

At Jak's start, you had one sort of 'hub' area in Sandover Village. However, you could explore Sentinel Beach just off of that, or head into the Forbidden Jungle just on the other side. With a few collectibles, you could also jump on a boat and explore Misty Island. There wasn't a specific linear way of doing this, and the Forbidden Jungle gives you a large circular area of two vertical heights to explore as you see fit. This open-world idea would work very well to Crash's advantage if done right, much as it has done for the Legend of Zelda series over the years.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy featured open, non-linear environments that would work in an open-world Crash game.

To keep it Crash, the developers would need to be careful. Would smashing all the crates still produce a gem in one area? Would there be areas you could only reach once you had gained a power-up? Would you be able to play as Crash's sister, Coco? The answer to all these questions... should be yes. The idea of swapping to Coco brings about other gameplay opportunities that only she should be able to do, like hacking into mechanical devices to gain further access. Alternatively, if Crunch was an available character, he would be able to smash things down with his brute strength. The Sly Cooper series utilised this in Sly, Bentley and Murray exceedingly well around an explorative hub environment, which could work nicely in Crash's favour with some of his core gameplay ideas in-tact.

Sly Cooper 2, 3 and Thieves in Time used open-world hubs for exploration as different characters.

3: There is No Future

The last potential future idea is a sad one. It involves no Crash at all. With the N.Sane Trilogy having proved such a success, Activision could instead decide to remaster and remake other older games. This has already started to happen with Spyro the Dragon, and Sony have started to pursue this with Resident Evil and MediEvil. Should this take off in such a way, it's possible that the N.Sane Trilogy would be Crash's last hurrah, with no further intention to do anything with the franchise.

It's a grim thought and the worse case scenario, but it's one that's still very possible. Activision could just look at the incredible sales of the N.Sane Trilogy and misread it as "nostalgia is hot right now, let's remake other games!" instead of "let's do something more with Crash". I wouldn't put it past them.

The Spyro: Reignited Trilogy is another of Sony and Activision's remastered+ series.

Mistakes to Avoid

When we last saw Crash, before his grand return, he was taking over pseudo-titans in 2008's Mind Over Mutant. Well, that or driving karts in the 2010 iOS game Crash Nitro Kart 2. Radical Entertainment's Mind Over Mutant wasn't what many would think of when they think of a Crash Bandicoot game and formula. Crate-smashing had no meaning beyond gathering mojo, gems weren't a present collectible, and the emphasis was quite clearly on combat. It would be easy to accuse Radical Entertainment of shaping Crash into something he wasn't, all for the sake of making him 'relevant' to the then current audience. Instead, it's dated the game with awkward pop-culture references in the way that dates older Family Guy episodes. A potential mistake would be for Activision to think "what will make Crash 'relevant' again" and repeat the same mistake. Let's not forget it had been a long ride since Mind Over Mutant to Crash's 2016 return in Skylanders: Imaginators.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D was certainly... a game.

The Future's Bright, the Future's... Orange

When all's said and done, the Crash Bandicoot franchise has been hefty money-spinner for publishers, Activision. If you'd pardon the pun, they'd be insane to miss out on further opportunities with the bandicoot. The best case scenario would be for Vicarious Visions to continue development on future Crash titles, having proved their care and love for the orange marsupial in the N.Sane Trilogy. Not only that, but they've proven they can handle excellent level design involving Crash templates from Future Tense.

Whatever the case may be, here's to hoping the future is bright for ol' fuzzy lugs.