E3 2016: Three ‘Crash Bandicoot’ Remasters Announced By Sony
Monday’s Electronic Entertainment Expo [E3] was extremely newsworthy, as a ton of highly-anticipated titles like God of War 3 and Days Gone were announced. We also got a look at what Hideo Kojima’s next project will look like. But arguably the biggest news that came out of E3 is that Sony will be remastering the first three Crash Bandicoot games, which means that we’ll be getting Crash Bandicoot 1, Crash Bandicoot 2, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped coming out for the PlayStation 4 at some point.
The rumor that Sony was kicking around the idea of bringing Crash back started going around quite some time ago, and it never really went away. In fact, it began to pick up even more steam after the first game was featured in Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
Activision, who was given the rights to the Crash Bandicoot series in 2008, still owns the franchise, and during an interview with Kotaku, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg admitted that he and his team were trying to find a way to revive the beloved franchise.
“I don’t have anything official to announce, but I can speak as an individual, I love Crash Bandicoot. Those were some of my favorite video games growing up. And I would love to find a way to bring him back, if we could.”
Most fans of the Crash Bandicoot series were hoping for an announcement of a new Crash game, but for now, it looks like all we’ll have is the first three games remastered for the PS4.
Sony and Activision have tried producing new Crash Bandicoot games in the past, but they always end up canceling production. But Sony’s President and CEO Andrew House has said that they haven’t completely closed the door on a new Crash title.
“This is a very dangerous ground. In concept, it is something we’ve been thinking about and discussing, and this is a shift for us.”
“We’ve started to say that maybe there isn’t anything wrong with going back and looking at characters that people still talk about, that were a big part of either their childhood or their youth. I definitely wouldn’t close the door on that.”
Crash Bandicoot is finally back on PlayStation — via remasters and Skylanders https://t.co/bYxVqdhxMb pic.twitter.com/qFkgAoVYFJ
— VentureBeat (@VentureBeat) June 14, 2016
Over the weekend, gaming industry insider Shinobi602 suggested that there would be a remake of one of the Crash Bandicoot games and that the remake would be announced at E3. Well, he was certainly right on the money with his prediction, but no one could’ve predicted that Sony was going to completely remaster the first three games of the series.
The release dates for the three Crash Bandicoot remasters haven’t yet been announced, nor do we know just how long Sony and Activision have been working on the remasters. But, it’s certainly great to see that the series is getting remastered on PS4 because it could lead to a brand new Crash Bandicoot game in the future if the remasters sell well, which they probably will.
The Crash character will also be featured in the PlayStation 4 version of Skylanders: Imaginators. You can take a look at the Crash reveal trailer for Skylanders below.
It’s safe to assume that all three of the remasters will be released at the same time, much like when Naughty Dog remastered and released the first three Uncharted games for the PS4 last fall.
[Image via Sony Computer Entertainment]
