The Candidates for a New Crash Bandicoot

With Crash Bandicoot making his gloriously remastered return to PlayStation later this year - 30th June to be precise - fans of the jean-short wearing marsupial are already wanting more. While Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is the three original Crash games, back from the original PlayStation days, any success could jump start a whole new reboot of the series. The question is, with the complicated ownership of the Crash rights, who could get the call in bringing Crash into a brand new adventure?

Playtonic Games

The 3D platformer has been something of a non-entity this generation, though things look to be changing with Yooka-Laylee, which is poised to bring back the glory days. Channelling their inner Rare, the guys at Playtonic Games are creating the spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie and depending on the reaction it gets, they could become the industry's very own 3D platformer surgeons. And top of that list: Mr. C Bandicoot.

Just picture this with a marsupial and a mask instead

Toys For Bob

Not universally known, but once I preface it with ‘the developers of all things Skylanders’, it all starts to make sense. With Crash currently being under the ownership of Activision, it would be logical for the behemoth publisher to keep things in house - the suits can sort out the complicated Sony rights thing privately - and create a brand new Crash game taking influence from Skylanders of time gone by. Not only will it welcome old fans, but those of a younger ilk, who know Skylanders but not Crash, will likely be easily coerced into a similar looking game with equally insane characters.

Vicarious Visions

Vicarious Visions is the logical choice. The safe bet. As well as being the developers for the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, in which it’s fully redesigned, remodelled and recreated the original Crash trilogy, it has a previous track record with the marsupial. A handful of Game Boy Advance Crash Bandicoot games were developed by Vicarious Visions, and while the current generation of consoles are a million miles away from the humble handheld, its backlog shows scope for new ideas and new adventures. 

Sony XDev

While Sony XDev aren’t a studio in the sense we’ve all become accustomed to, it works incredibly hard as part of Sony’s independent team finding and working with talent to produce high quality experiences. Rather than looking for an established studio, why not hand over the responsibility to an indie team desperate to make a name for themselves and create something entirely unique from previous Crash experiences. Metroidvania anyone? 

Something like this, just... better

Naughty Dog

This is more of an alternative reality selection. Although Naughty Dog is the original creator of the manic marsupial, it’s come along way from breaking boxes and collecting wumpa fruit. Naughty Dog are now one of, if not the finest developer in the industry, creating beautifully presented narrative driven experiences. Crash might not be top of the ‘what’s next’ list following the current hiatus of Uncharted and recently announced The Last of Us Part II, but it would certainly be an interesting change of direction.

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Who do you want to make a brand new Crash Bandicoot game? Let us know in the comments below.