All Articles: Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

Last seen as a welcome retro distraction in Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, everyone’s favourite orange marsupial is returning to the PlayStation 4 in Crash Banidicoot N. Sane Trilogy, developed by Vicarious Visions.

The developer, which originally got involved with Crash after working on Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure for the Game Boy Advance in 2002, dubbed the N. Sane trilogy a “Remaster Plus” on the PlayStation Blog. This need for a new moniker is because the original games designed by Naughty Dog are 20 years old, and all the assets used would not directly translate to the new generation of consoles. To that end, Vicarious Visions rebuilt the trilogy collection from scratch, using the original geometry of the levels, but redoing the animation, art, and audio.

The result is a trio of games (Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back, and Warped) that feel familiar, but have been completely retooled to almost better resemble a brand new game. The eyebrows are back, but in glorious high definition. There will also be Time Trials in all three games, plus the original will now have a proper save system. Vicarious has even managed to snare the original voice actors, including Jess Harnell and Lex Lang, to record fresh dialogue.

Although they didn’t specify an exact date, Sony confirmed the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will drop sometime in 2017.