48 Fun Facts About Crash Bandicoot

Naughty Dog's rude codename for Crash Bandicoot, mocking its behind-the-hero camera, named which rival?

Sonic the Hedgehog lent his rear to the codename 'Sonic's Ass Game', because a camera trailing the hero meant staring at a character's backside all game. The team unanimously liked the idea before choosing a console.

Which placeholder name, borrowed from another Australian marsupial, did Crash carry through development?

Willy the Wombat was only a working title the founders found 'too dorky'; while readying the E3 1996 demo the team renamed him Crash Bandicoot, a name credited to Taylor Kurosaki and Dave Baggett.

A playable level from the original Crash Bandicoot appears inside which 2016 Naughty Dog game?

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End lets players pick up a PlayStation controller in-story and play Crash's first game, Naughty Dog's nod to a series it no longer owns. Sony bought the studio in 2001; the Crash rights stayed put.

Crash Bandicoot's first US TV ads had a costumed fan heckling which rival outside Nintendo's offices?

Mario was the target: the agency imagined a crazed fan sewing his own Crash outfit and driving to Nintendo to harass its star, casting Sony as the challenger.

How many Wumpa Fruit must Crash collect in the original PlayStation games to earn an extra life?

100 Wumpa Fruit earn an extra life, a rule that has held from the 1996 original through the N. Sane Trilogy. In Crash of the Titans the fruit switched jobs and restored health instead.

Which habit, involving objects added to fill empty levels, gave Crash Bandicoot his first name?

Smashing crates is where 'Crash' comes from: the boxes were only added because the levels felt empty, and breaking them became his defining habit. Clearing every one in a level without dying earns a gem.

Naughty Dog chose the PlayStation for Crash over a rumoured Nintendo 64 largely because Sony lacked what?

A mascot was the gap: Nintendo and Sega each had a star while Sony's slate was blank. Andy Gavin also called Sony 'a sexy company' with 'a sexy machine', the best of the consoles on offer.

To keep his expressions readable on low-resolution 1990s TVs, Crash got a giant head and no what?

Neck-free by design, Crash caused trouble decades later: the artists on Crash Bandicoot 4 called his missing neck one of the hardest parts of redesigning him.

Cortex's archipelago in the original Crash Bandicoot lies 300 miles west of which real island?

Tasmania is the nearest real land, chosen because Crash is based on a Tasmanian animal and evil geniuses traditionally keep island strongholds. Later games call the chain the Wumpa Islands.

Which being, freed when Cortex's space station crashes to Earth, is the evil twin of Crash's guardian spirit?

Uka Uka was locked away long ago by his brother and is revealed as the mastermind behind Cortex's earlier schemes. The game's intro was built from sketches of Cortex begging for his forgiveness.

Which machine does Cortex use in the original Crash Bandicoot to mutate the islands' wildlife into an army?

The Evolvo-Ray mutates animals into soldiers, while the separate Cortex Vortex was meant to brainwash them; Crash escaped when the Vortex failed on him. Cortex had picked him as the army's general.

Cortex's unhinged cyborg engineer N. Gin survived an accident that left what lodged in his head?

An unexploded missile sits in N. Gin's skull, and the engineer still helped Cortex build a crystal-powered Cortex Vortex in outer space. Crash is tricked into gathering its crystals in Cortex Strikes Back.

Which studio rebuilt the first three Crash games as the N. Sane Trilogy without the original source code?

Vicarious Visions had to decode outdated polygon meshes supplied by Sony and Naughty Dog, cross-checking footage of the originals to match their timings. They called the result a 'Remaster Plus' rather than a remake.

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!, a 2021 mobile runner, came from which Candy Crush studio?

King licensed Crash in 2020 and its runner drew more than 27 million downloads in its first week, yet the studio switched off the servers in February 2023.

Which studio made Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and Crash Team Rumble before leaving its publisher in 2024?

Toys for Bob treated Crash 4 as a direct continuation of the original trilogy, then went independent in February 2024, after which Team Rumble got its final update. A planned Crash 5 was cancelled.

Crash of the Titans and Crash Tag Team Racing came from which studio, also behind The Simpsons: Hit & Run?

Radical Entertainment was bought by Vivendi during Tag Team Racing and went on to make Mind over Mutant too, before losing half its staff to 2010 layoffs. A jacked Titan is steered by Crash until it is destroyed.

Crash Bandicoot 5, cancelled after Crash 4 underperformed, was to feature a crossover with which PlayStation hero?

Spyro was to share the bill, but the publisher's pivot to live-service games killed the project. Crash 4 had sold 402,000 digital units in its first month, below both recent remasters.

Which character was created as a girlish counterbalance to Crash's original girlfriend, to appease Sony Japan?

Coco Bandicoot, Crash's tech-savvy sister, hacks Cortex's hologram in Cortex Strikes Back to warn Crash he is being tricked, then becomes playable for the first time in the third game.

Which Crash character, first called Karmen and modelled on Pamela Anderson, was dropped after the original game?

Tawna was toned down from her Pamela Anderson-inspired first design, then written out to please Sony Japan, which wanted a more girlish supporting character. An alternate-dimension version returned as a playable adventurer in Crash 4.

Which flamethrower-wielding Crash villain, introduced in Warped, has retired to run a diner by Crash Bandicoot 4?

Dingodile is half dingo, half crocodile, requested by Naughty Dog's Joe Labbe II for the third game, and Crash 4 makes him playable with a vacuum gun that sucks up enemies. Moonshiner bats blow up his diner.

Despite his name, Cortex's hulking, savage minion Tiny Tiger is which striped Australian marsupial?

A thylacine is what Tiny actually is, a marsupial predator rather than a cat; he was designed for the first game but held back to become a boss in Cortex Strikes Back. The Komodo Brothers waited the same way.

Which first-game Crash boss, a showcase of the Cortex Vortex's dangers, writes a book in the epilogue?

Ripper Roo, per the epilogue, undergoes therapy and higher education and writes a well-received book on the consequences of rapid evolution. His animation let Naughty Dog show off overlapping action.

Which 1972 film inspired Pinstripe Potoroo, the Crash Bandicoot boss who later opens a Chicago sanitation firm?

The Godfather gave Pinstripe his mob-boss styling, and the epilogue has him preparing a run for governor after the sanitation business. Cartoonists Joe Pearson and Charles Zembillas drew the cast.

Which fur colour did Naughty Dog rule out for Crash because it bled on older televisions?

Red was outlawed because it bled on older TV sets, and once other shades were crossed off against famous characters and backdrops, orange was simply what remained.

Mutato Muzika, the studio behind the first Crash soundtrack, was founded by Mark Mothersbaugh of which band?

Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh got the job after a producer's pitch for an 'urban chaotic symphony' of bird chirps, car honks and farting noises was rejected; Josh Mancell wrote most of the score.

Which publisher beat 3DO and Crystal Dynamics in a bidding war for Naughty Dog, offering space on a film studio lot?

Universal Interactive also funded three further games with creative freedom, and it kept the Crash rights when Sony later bought Naughty Dog. The studio's founders had been showing Way of the Warrior at a trade show booth next door.

Which rewards in sapphire, gold and platinum tiers did Crash's third game add for beating a level's clock?

Relics were introduced to give players a reason to return after finishing the game; every five unlock another level in a secret warp room. Touching the floating stopwatch near a level's start begins the trial.

Which former assistant of Cortex urges Crash to collect gems instead of crystals in Cortex Strikes Back?

Nitrus Brio, Cortex's sidekick in the first game, wants the gems so he can destroy his old boss's space station, and sends his own forces after Crash for helping Cortex.

Which animals are the Evil Twins of Crash Twinsanity, once Cortex's boyhood pets Victor and Moritz?

Parrots mutated by the Tenth Dimension's 'reverso-radioactivity' after an eight-year-old Cortex tested a prototype ray on them, and they return to steal his brain. The plot forces Crash and Cortex to team up.

Crash Twinsanity's first plot, about villains building a planet, too closely resembled which game?

Ratchet & Clank got there first in 2002, so the studio scrapped the draft and restarted production; time pressure later forced it to drop a number of planned ideas.

Crash Twinsanity's entire soundtrack was composed and performed by Spiralmouth, a band of which kind?

A cappella group Spiralmouth composed, performed, arranged and produced every track with their voices, and went on to help score Crash Tag Team Racing.

Nina Cortex, who debuted in Crash Twinsanity punching foes with mechanical arms, is what relation to Neo Cortex?

His niece is recruited from Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil, where Cortex himself studied as a boy, to help repair the Psychetron. She later co-stars as a villain in Crash of the Titans.

Per Joe Pearson's original production bible, the 'N' tattooed on Doctor Neo Cortex's forehead stands for what?

Nerd was the taunt his circus-performer family tattooed on him, per a backstory in which Cortex was born in a wagon fleeing Peoria, Illinois. His creators pitched him as a tiny body under an enormous head.

Which actor, the voice of SpongeBob's Mr. Krabs, played Doctor Neo Cortex from Cortex Strikes Back to Nitro Kart?

Clancy Brown voiced Cortex until 2003; Lex Lang took over with Crash Twinsanity, coached to play the villain as more flamboyant and self-absorbed.

Crash and Cortex became playable guests in which figure-based game, revealed alongside the N. Sane Trilogy?

Skylanders: Imaginators gave Crash a yo-yo to reel enemies in and let him throw TNT boxes. He then became a recurring character in the Skylanders Academy cartoon, speaking full sentences in an Australian accent.

In Crash Team Racing, what does the alien Nitros Oxide threaten to turn Earth into if he beats its best driver?

A concrete parking lot is the threat from Oxide, who calls his challenge 'survival of the fastest'. Naughty Dog first rebuilt a Diddy Kong Racing track to prove the PlayStation could handle a kart racer.

Which 28-mini-game party title starring Cortex, Tiny and Koala Kong was the first made without Naughty Dog?

Crash Bash came from Eurocom and has the series' two feuding spirits settle their quarrel through a contest, as they may not fight each other directly; two villains switch to the good side to even the teams.

After Crash Team Racing, a creatively exhausted Naughty Dog left Crash to start which new PlayStation 2 series?

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy followed in 2001, with the team disenchanted by its lack of control over a property it did not own. Sony bought Naughty Dog during that game's production.

Which publisher took ownership of Crash Bandicoot by absorbing Vivendi Games in a merger finalised in 2008?

Activision inherited Crash through the Vivendi Games merger, then left the series dormant after 2010 until the N. Sane Trilogy; in 2014 Sony's Andrew House said a comeback was 'never off the table'.

Which 2002 Game Boy Advance title, in which Cortex shrinks Earth to grapefruit size, was Crash's first handheld game?

The Huge Adventure was also the first Crash game off PlayStation hardware, born of a deal with Konami for handhelds; Cortex's Planetary Minimizer does the shrinking. Crash must gather 20 crystals to reverse it.

Cortex Strikes Back opens with Crash sent to fetch what for his sister, before Cortex beams him into a Warp Room?

A laptop battery is the errand; instead Cortex beams Crash into an ancient Warp Room and spins a tale about a planetary alignment so Crash will gather crystals for him.

In Crash Bandicoot 4, the four new spirits Lani-Loli, Akano, Kupuna-Wa and Ika-Ika are known collectively as what?

The Quantum Masks appear only where their powers are needed and turn into a suit on Crash. Between them they phase objects, slow time, reverse gravity and grant a dark-matter spin.

Which Crash Bandicoot 4 mode, unlocked by beating the 'Trouble Brewing' boss, turns Wumpa Fruit into Bumpa Berries?

N. Verted mode mirrors each level under a visual filter that changes with the dimension, and it has Gems of its own, so full completion means beating every level both ways.

Which tool does the alternate-dimension version of Crash's old girlfriend use in Crash 4, alongside wall jumps?

A grappling hook and wall jumps set her apart from Crash and his sister, and her levels are entirely her own. She insists on working alone and won't say what happened in her dimension.

Which Crash Bandicoot 4 items, lost if you die before reaching them, unlock levels showing Cortex's early tests on Crash?

Flashback Tapes vanish on death unless the level is restarted; each unlocks a side-scrolling trial from Castle Cortex, the first ones set just before Crash's original escape.

Who abducts Crash and friends to race for the amusement of his alien world in Crash Nitro Kart?

Emperor Velo XXVII threatens to destroy Earth if the abducted racers refuse to entertain his subjects; beaten, he explodes to reveal a tiny goblin inside a robotic suit.

Which muscular bandicoot, engineered by Cortex as a weapon in The Wrath of Cortex, defects to Crash's side after losing?

Crunch draws his power from the Elementals, destructive spirits harnessed for Cortex's scheme, and becomes playable in later games. Crash and his sister must gather crystals to put the Elementals back to sleep.

Which Crash character was once planned as an elderly human whose mumbles only Crash could understand?

Aku Aku was pitched as an old man mumbling at Crash like R2-D2 to C-3PO; the floating guardian players know arrived late, as a low-polygon stand-in for a translucent shield meant to ease the difficulty.