Activision announced that the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will launch on PS4 on June 30. Polygon reported the collection will cost $40.
The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy was first announced at E3 2016 to celebrate the character’s 20th anniversary. The PS4 exclusive includes the first three Crash Bandicoot games: Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. The original games were developed by Naughty Dog – now known for Uncharted and The Last of Us – but the N. Sane Trilogy is being developed by Vicarious Visions.
Vicarious Visions said they don’t consider the N. Sane Trilogy to be 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,” wrote the developer in PlayStation blog post. The game utilizes the original level geometry, character designs and cinematic designs but all of them have been rebuilt. Even though the game is being rebuilt from the ground up the developer promises to stay true to the originals. “Using the original level geometry from Naughty Dog as a guide, we rebuilt the Crash gameplay from scratch, capturing its simplicity and precision,” said Vicarious Visions in that same blog post.
Vicarious Visions has also taken the time to add new features. “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,” said the developer. Some of the features include updated saving and checkpoint systems and time trial modes in all three games.
The original Crash Bandicoot launched in 1996 as PlayStation exclusive and cemented the character as the unofficial mascot for the console. The character has not starred in his own platformer since 2008’s Crash: Mind Over Mutant.
