While the rumours and confirmation of a new Half-Life game coming out of Valve has been getting all the headlines, another seemingly long-dead franchise is getting a revival. After getting a shot in the arm from a pair of re-releases, Crash Bandicoot will be getting its first new console game since 2008’s Mind Over Mutant with the rumoured release of Crash Bandicoot Worlds.

The game was first publicly teased in the “It’s Time to Play” PlayStation TV ad in the form of a new mask floating behind Crash and friends in a karting race. An artist at one of the rumoured developers for this game seemed to acknowledge the new mask on Twitter. People also noticed a previously-unseen Crash model being used on a “It’s Time to Play” bus ad in the UK. While these are the first public hints of the game, rumours from the folks at 4Chan (who were apparently also right about the last two remakes being in production) say that work has been ramping up on the game to the point that an official announcement is rumoured to be coming next month. While no specific date was rumoured beyond December 2019, it would line up with an announcement or footage reveal at The Game Awards. Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled also had it’s announcement at the same show last year.

Internally referred to as Crash 8 (as it’s the 8th game in the “main” franchise), Crash Bandicoot Worlds is being developed by both Vicarious Visions (the developer behind 2017’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remake of the PS1 games) and Toys for Bob (who provided development support for the N. Sane Trilogy and are better known for Skylanders and the Spyro the Dragon Reignited Trilogy) and published by Activision. Rumours suggest that the gameplay will be similar to Super Mario 3D World with 3D environments rather than the linear environments featured in the N. Sane Trilogy. Worlds will also feature new enemies and three new masks: the Sun Mask, the Lunar Mask and the Eclipse Mask.

A leaked teaser image shows the release window as 2020. Given that an early year release date would almost certainly have to be set in stone at this stage of 2019, it’s likely a later in 2020 release. The two recent remasters (N. Sane Trilogy and Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled) were both released in June so that would be the earliest that I would speculate a release window being.

That aforementioned teaser image also includes a small logo saying PS4. Without logos for other consoles or platforms, it would indicate that Worlds will be, at the very least, a timed-exclusive on the PlayStation 4. The N. Sane trilogy was an exclusive for one year (364 days, to be precise) on the PlayStation 4 before coming to the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. Conversely, CTR Nitro-Fueled was launched on the PS4, Xbox One and Switch simultaneously.

If the rumours and reporting are true, we’ll find out more shortly and we’ll follow up on etg.

Sources: /r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/, GamesRadar

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