Almost a year on from the moment when Sony formally resurrected the iconic PlayStation mascot, developer Vicarious Visions has nailed down plans to launch Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy on June 30th.
Bundling together HD versions of Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Game Director Dan Tanguay firmly believes the N. Sane Trilogy represents a “AAA remaster,” and all involved have made a concerted effort to ensure the PS4 release offers up the original experience with a new lick of paint, from the core gameplay right down to level design.
“This is a AAA remaster. We’re giving this the love and attention to detail that we pay to all of our AAA games. We’re building it using the original level geometry so that it plays as close to the original as possible. We’ve also referred to this as a remaster plus, as we are adding new features that we think the fans are going to love!”
Elsewhere in the PS Blog post, the game’s Audio Lead Justin Joyner noted that the developer chose to overhaul individual soundtracks, rather than swap in the original compositions.
“We are recreating the original compositions to match the high-definition visuals and the updated look and feel of the game. The original music was brilliantly composed and arranged to get the most out of the memory and processing power of the original PlayStation. With much-expanded resources, we are able to really improve sound quality and fidelity, while staying faithful to the original compositions.”
There’s also mention of the voice cast that Vicarious has assembled for Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which includes Fred Tatasciore (Dingodile, Koala Kong, Komodo), Debi Derryberry (Coco, Tawna), Greg Eagles (Aku Aku) and Jess Harnell (Crash Bandicoot, Pinstripe Potoroo, Ripper Roo), and many more. Full details can be found over on PS Blog.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will officially make a beeline for PlayStation 4 on June 30th. It’ll be priced at $39.99 USD, not unlike Insomniac’s cut-price approach to last year’s rather wonderful Ratchet & Clank. To get a taste of what the former has to offer, we’ve included an extended gameplay demo from PSX 2016 down below.
