Finally announced after a lot of hefty leaks, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time will launch this October for PS4 and Xbox One. Effectively de-canonising The Wrath of Cortex and everything following it, Crash 4 shows plenty of promise as the first new mainline Crash game in many years.
Here’s its reveal trailer, which shows off the game’s vibrant art style and the slightly obvious return of Neo Cortex.
And here’s the synopsis, which wants to redefine what jorts are, apparently:
“Neo Cortex and N. Tropy are back at it again and launching an all-out assault on not just this universe, but the entire multiverse! Crash and Coco are here to save the day by reuniting the Four Quantum masks and bending the rules of reality.
“New abilities? Check. More playable characters? Yep. Alternate dimensions? Obviously. Ridonkulous bosses? For sure. Same awesome sauce? You bet your sweet jorts. Wait, are they actually jorts? Not in this universe!”
Right at the end of the trailer following Crash and his pals having a funny dig about other games in the series now being pushed to the side, it’s revealed that the game will also be getting digital exclusive “Totally Tubular” skins for Crash and Coco that seem to be inspired by the radical 90s.
Exclusive items depending on how and where you purchase a game is nothing new. Gamestop has been kept alive (well, more like on life support) for years by people wanting to get an exclusive pin, postcard or something with their games that they can’t get anywhere else. That’s unlikely to change.
What does seem likely to change, however, is digital exclusive items becoming more and more normal. For Crash, a franchise that started on the original PlayStation, it can’t help but feel a little odd, as well as point to how much the industry is shifting — and already has shifted — in general.
It’s inarguable that digital sales are starting to comfortably outstrip physical, and while physical is unlikely to ever truly die, it seems that the industry sees digital as the future. The PlayStation 5 having a discless version at launch, the first console to do so, at a presumably cheaper price will have plenty of people questioning which to get.
Seeing Crash, a character whose games adorn many a collector’s shelves, seemingly focus on digital over physical puts a bit of a knot in my stomach, especially with how Activision haven’t exactly covered themselves in hugs and kisses from Crash fans following the CTR microtransaction debacle.
If these skins are digital exclusives, it makes me question how many other skins, things that would normally just be unlockables in platformers, will be locked behind a paywall. Activision certainly have precedent for adding microtransactions to old properties, so I see these “Totally Tubular” skins as a way of potentially normalising them if that’s the direction they want to take for Crash 4. Even if it’s not at launch, as shown by CTR.
I don’t know. Maybe I am just clutching my pearls too much — I probably am. Still, as someone whose first game ever was Crash Bandicoot, a game that came complete in its case with all you could ever need right there on the disc, it feels like a startling reminder of how much things have changed in the industry over the last 25 years.
I don’t think I like it.
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