Character design in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time

⚠ Disclaimer: Before anything let me say that Crash Bandicoot is my favorite video game of all time, hence this article would not change this fact whatsoever.

Four days ago Activision revealed the most awaited new installment of Crash Bandicoot franchise, which represents the come back of our beloved orange marsupial 12 years after Crash: Mind Over Mutant. The new game titled Crash Bandictoot 4: It's About Time is developed by Toys For Bob, a subsidiary studios of Activision Blizzard, and it comes with a brand new look of the characters which made a buzz of comments both positive and negative from the die-hard fans. As one of the big fans of Crash myself I felt like "not again!" when I first saw the trailer during Summer Games Fest, because of the new character design which is different from the N. Sane Trilogy and CTR: Nitro Fueled, remastered by Vicarious Visions and Beenox respectively, that was very similar to the original character design by Naughty Dog.

You see, starting with Crash Bandicoot: the Wrath of Cortex until Crash: Mind Over Mutant Crash and his friends went through many changes in the design, and that made a big disconnection between the games and the fans who felt like they are playing something not Crash Bandicoot!

Vicarious Visions era felt like the last hope for the fans, and VV did a fantastic job with remastering the N. Sane Trilogy and passing on the assets to Beenox who led the team to remaster CTR: NF, and fans were so eager to see the new title thinking that it will be developed by the very loyal VV, but the surprise was shocking to see that the new game is developed by Toys For Bob who remastered Spyro Reignited Trilogy (another PSX classic originally developed by Insomniac Games), let alone the new character design.

As a fan of Crash Bandicoot I would love to see a new game with new adventure and new stuff, but with the same classic character design to feel the connection between the new game and the original ones, and to make me forget about changing the developers and the misery it brought to the community. Later in the future, developers can change things regarding the character design step by step in a way that keeps the continuity, especially since we see other platform franchises like Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog with the same character design through the years.

But now, I'd like to think of the new look as a point of view from the developers. I mean I thought about it a lot, and a very good example came to my mind is Tom and Jerry, the famous cartoon, which went through many changes in the character design each one came with a new animator and director, but after all we all recognize Tom and Jerry regardless of the character design.

Saying that I feel relieved because no matter what happens to the character design, people will always keep loving Crash Bandicoot.