Crash Bandicoot, a character owned by Xbox subsidiary Activision Blizzard, will appear in the upcoming PlayStation 5 exclusive Astro Bot.
Very good I noticed a reference to the beloved bandito in PlayStation Blog post discussing the character designs for Astro Bot, confirming that Crash will appear as a cameo character in the reference-heavy platformer. Astro meets characters wearing costumes from games like God of War and Horizon, for example, and Crash Bandicoot is also on the list.
“For all of these characters, the eyes are the most important thing,” says Astro Bot director Nicolas Doucet. “Sometimes the LED eyes just didn’t work for certain characters because the original design relied on pupils being a certain size or color, for example. So for the more cartoonish VIPs like Crash Bandicoot or Ape Escape, the Bots wear masks to help overcome that problem.”
Crash Bandicoot debuted as an original PlayStation game from Naughty Dog, creators of The Last of Us and Uncharted. While those two franchises are still firmly rooted in the PlayStation camp, Crash finds himself on the opposite side of the console war.
The series came under Activision’s control in 2008 when the company merged with original producer Vivendi. In turn, when Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard for a staggering $68.7 billion in 2023, Crash Bandicoot officially became an Xbox-owned franchise.
Of course, the game still has its roots in PlayStation and is still associated with the brand, given the popularity of Crash Bandicoot in the early days of PlayStation.
The series has been silent since the release of Crash Bandicoot 4 in 2020, and recently a former developer broke fans’ hearts by talking about a fifth installment that never saw release.
Ryan Dinsdale is a freelance reporter for IGN. He’ll be talking Witcher all day long.
