The ex-Playstation mascot just celebrated his 25the anniversary. A look back at the origins and success of this now cult license.
At the end of 1996, you were perhaps one of those players who had a terrible time making their "Christmas list", the fault of an avalanche of games, each more spectacular and awaited than the next. Indeed, Nintendo had just launched its 3D revolution with Super Mario 64 in Japan and the United States (but it took until September 1997 in Europe), Eidos was preparing the launch of a Tomb Raider which promised to be exceptional, Resident Evil was available for barely a month, WipEout 2097 was released at the end of the month, Donkey Kong Country 3 was due to arrive in November... To all this was added a brand new license with gigantic potential and which had been enticing players for a few months in specialized magazines: Crash Bandicoot.
Crash Bandicoot, just 25 years old
In 1996, then available for a year in Europe, the PlayStation was about to experience a particularly rich second Christmas. Among the many games in development on the Sony console, a title signed Naughty Dog, a studio relatively unknown to the battalion despite a few games on Amiga and 3DO as well as a certain Rings of Power on SEGA Mega Drive.
Widely highlighted in the magazines of the time, this Crash Bandicoot has everything from a hit in power, to the ultimate platform game, with the added bonus for Sony of the possibility, if success is there, of making this new character a powerful mascot for his PlayStation, like Mario for Nintendo.
The story, you know it. Crash Bandicoot is a slightly (very) frosty marsupial, who will have to cross the Wumpa archipelago, that is to say three islands, and a little more than thirty levels to go and kick the buttocks of the infamous Dr. Neo Cortex, a mad scientist who kidnapped the beautiful Tawna.
Unlike a Super Mario 64, no "open world" here, but a very linear progression, with different levels to choose from a small interactive map (like Super Mario World, but more modern, we're on PlayStation, we want 3D!). Obviously, each level is full of bonuses and other hidden objects, not to mention the famous crates to explode, one of the objectives of each level being to destroy them all (and if possible without losing a life).
Behind the scenes, the development of Crash Bandicoot was particularly… chaotic. Indeed, in the early 90s, Naughty Dog signed an exclusive contract (for three games) with Universal Interactive Studios, then headed by a certain Mark Cerny. Eager to create a "new" style of platform game, Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin then imagined a 3D game that we would no longer watch from the side (like a Super Mario Bros 3 or a Sonic), but from behind (even front sometimes). The concept of Crash Bandicoot was born, and this new game would take the code name of… Sonic's Ass Game.
Obviously, the title will be changed, but in the meantime, we had to decide which platform would host this upcoming game. We were thinking of the Saturn, the 32X from SEGA, even the Jaguar… but it was finally the PlayStation that was chosen, with a development agreement with Sony (and still this hope of creating the “mascot” of the PlayStation).
At the start of the 1995 school year, a year before the game was released, the one that would later be called Crash Bandicoot began to create tension between Naughty Dog, Sony and Universal Interactive Studios. It was before E3 1996, and when tensions were higher than ever, that the name Crash Bandicoot was chosen.
The names "Dash Bandicoot" or "Smash Bandicoot" had been mentioned. At Universal Interactive Studios, we went as far as “Wezzly the Wombat” and “Ozzie the Ottsel”… At Naughty Dog, we threatened to abandon the project if Crash Bandicoot was not selected, and the studio finally won of cause. Phew!
Upon its release, a few months later, Crash Bandicoot was very (very) well received by critics, but also by players who discovered a visually stunning game, thanks to various specific development tips, with the added bonus of a relatively unprecedented for the time. This title sold just under 7 million copies on PlayStation and is part of the top 10 best-selling consoles.
The PlayStation allowed Crash Bandicoot to express itself again through a second opus called Cortex Strikes Back, without forgetting Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. Naughty Dog even authorized a small mechanical spin-off in 1999, with the excellent (extreme) Crash Team Racing, just to tease a certain Mario Kart this time. This is the latest Crash Bandicoot developed by the Naughty Dog team.
Indeed, the series was somewhat bogged down in the 2000s, passing from hand to hand, but the latter has regained all its splendor recently, with the excellent Crash Bandicoot 4, which brilliantly took up the torch left by the Warped episode over twenty years ago. And we have to admit that we no longer believed in it!
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