Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy debut trailer, gameplay
Crash Bandicoot 1, 2, and 3 completely remade.
Activision unveiled the first trailer and gameplay for Crash Bandicoot: Insane Trilogy during the PlayStationExperience 2016 keynote.
The 2017-due PlayStation 4 collection includes remakes of Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped. It will cost $39.99.
Here’s Activision’s description of the game:
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy lets players spin, jump and wump as they take on the epic challenges and adventures from the three Crash games that started it all: Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped.
Developed by Vicarious Visions, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is being built from the ground up for the PlayStation 4 with brand-new lighting, animations, environments and recreated cinematics—all in stunning “N. Hanced Fur-K” and PS4 Pro HD. Fans new and old alike will enjoy seeing the beloved ‘90s video game icon like never before in this fully-remastered game collection.
What’s more, the trilogy will feature full analog stick support, a unified save system and unified checkpoint system, making it easier than ever for new fans to enjoy the classic adventures. Additionally, improved bonus levels and time trials throughout the games will make this an epic trilogy for the hardest of the ‘Coot core!
Activision and Vicarious Visions are honoring the heritage of Crash throughout the trilogy in a variety of ways, including a fully-remastered game soundtrack, packed with all the didgeridoos, xylophones and thumpin’ bass lines you can handle, as well as newly recorded dialogue from some of the familiar voice actors who appear in the original Crash Bandicoot games, including Jess Harnell and Lex Lang, among others.
It’s practically impossible to make a traditional remaster of the original Naughty Dog games. They’re roughly 20 years old, and technology has advanced significantly in that time. The original code and assets are nearly unusable. Nearly.
But we don’t consider this a remake. We know how much you all love the original games, so we didn’t want to fully remake them. The N. Sane Trilogy is a remaster plus.
The first step in our remaster plus was to truly understand what made the Naughty Dog games special and why fans still love them to this day. The best way to understand a game is to play it, and boy, did we play the Crash games. We played them to the point that we broke controllers from mashing the jump button too much. We studied original concept art and commercials for inspiration. And we went even further back to understand the material that originally inspired Naughty Dog, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Looney Tunes.
With all of that in mind, we started our work. Using the original level geometry from Naughty Dog as a guide, we rebuilt the Crash gameplay from scratch, capturing its simplicity and precision. As the levels began to take shape, we layered in our own lush and zany art, animation, and audio.
Let’s see the results! Here are some work-in-progress examples of what to expect:
Rebuilt levels, based on the original geometry
Another beautiful day at N. Sanity Beach!
Rebuilt characters, following the original designs
Such a motley crew.
Rebuilt cinematics, inspired by the originals
What a jerk.
Adding New Features
Because this is a remaster plus, we have an opportunity to add features.
Choosing new features is a difficult process. We consider numerous things, including the team’s ideas and fan requests, but perhaps our most important consideration is the evolution of the franchise itself. Naughty Dog learned a lot of lessons on how to refine the Crash formula over the course of making three games. So, the first new features we’ve worked on take the best of each of the games and apply them to all three.
Here are some work-in-progress examples:
Unified checkpointing & save game system. This includes manual and auto-saving. (Yes, the first game now has a proper save game system!)
Unified menu system. Here an example of the Pause menu for Crash Bandicoot:
Eagle-eyed readers will notice something special about this Pause Menu.
Time Trials in all three games!
These aren’t the only new features for the N. Sane Trilogy. However, that’s all we’re going to share for today.
Watch the footage below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.
