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50 free Crash Bandicoot trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Crash Bandicoot was built in a hurry by a tiny studio that wanted Sony to have a hero of its own, and nearly thirty years later he is still spinning. The origin story is full of odd turns: a placeholder name that almost stuck, a rude codename, a colour chosen by ruling everything else out, a level too hard to ship and TV ads that picked a fight with Nintendo. These 50 questions cover the original PlayStation trilogy and the kart racer that followed, the years under other studios, the remaster collection and Crash Bandicoot 4, plus the cast: Cortex, his henchmen, the guardian spirits and Crash's sister. There are questions on sales milestones, a fossil, guest appearances in other games and the rules of Wumpa Fruit and boxes. Play it if you grew up with a grey PlayStation, or use it to run a gaming round at a pub quiz. Roughly half the questions are fair game for any 1990s gamer; the rest reward people who actually collected every gem.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Naughty Dog's rude codename for Crash Bandicoot, mocking its behind-the-hero camera, named which rival?
Sonic the Hedgehog
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.
Q 02Which placeholder name, borrowed from another Australian marsupial, did Crash carry through development?
Willy the Wombat
Willy the Wombat stuck until E3 1996 even though the team thought it sounded 'too dorky' and Hudson Soft already had a Saturn game called Willy Wombat. The final name is credited to Taylor Kurosaki and Dave Baggett.
Q 03A playable recreation of a level from the original Crash Bandicoot appears inside which 2016 Naughty Dog game?
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
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.
Q 04What did Sony Japan's Megumi Hosoya create for Crash's costumed TV ads that Naughty Dog then wrote into the games?
A dance
A dance performed by a costumed Crash was the heart of Japan's TV campaign, and its success persuaded Naughty Dog to add the routine to the games themselves. Sony Japan's executives had initially disliked the character.
Q 05Crash Bandicoot's first US TV ads had a costumed fan heckling which rival outside Nintendo's offices?
Mario
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. The spot was shot near a Nintendo building, deliberately not the headquarters.
Q 06How many Wumpa Fruit must Crash collect in the original PlayStation games to earn an extra life?
100
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.
Q 07Which habit, involving objects added to fill empty levels, gave Crash Bandicoot his first name?
Smashing crates
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.
Q 08Naughty Dog chose the PlayStation for Crash over a rumoured Nintendo 64 largely because Sony lacked what?
A mascot
A mascot character was the gap: Nintendo and Sega each had a star, and Sony had tried Polygon Man and a Toshinden fighter without success. Naughty Dog also found the PlayStation 'sexy' next to a cartridge-based N64.
Q 09To keep his expressions readable on low-resolution 1990s TVs, Crash got a giant head and no what?
Neck
Neck-free by design, Crash is 'just shoulders and then a head', which later made him the hardest part to model for the remake team. Red fur was banned too, since red bled on older televisions.
Q 10Cortex's archipelago in the original Crash Bandicoot lies 300 miles west of which real island?
Tasmania
Tasmania is the nearest real land, chosen because Crash is based on a Tasmanian animal and evil geniuses traditionally keep island strongholds. The setting was later named N. Sanity Island.
Q 11Which being, freed when Cortex's space station crashes to Earth in Crash's third game, is Aku Aku's evil twin?
Uka Uka
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.
Q 12Which machine does Cortex use in the original Crash Bandicoot to mutate the islands' wildlife into an army?
The Evolvo-Ray
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.
Q 13Cortex's unhinged cyborg engineer N. Gin survived an accident that left what lodged in his head?
Q 21Which Crash character, first called Karmen and modelled on Pamela Anderson, was dropped after the original game?
Tawna
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.
Q 22Which flamethrower-wielding Crash villain, introduced in Warped, has retired to run a diner by Crash Bandicoot 4?
Dingodile
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.
Q 23Despite his name, Cortex's hulking, savage minion Tiny Tiger is which striped Australian marsupial?
An unexploded missile
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.
Q 14Which studio rebuilt the first three Crash games as the N. Sane Trilogy without the original source code?
Vicarious Visions
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.
Q 15Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!, downloaded over 60 million times, came from which Candy Crush studio?
King
King licensed Crash from the publisher in 2020 for a runner that shut down in February 2023 after earning only about $4 million from in-app purchases. Its levels had fixed starts and ends, unlike most endless runners.
Q 16Which studio made Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and Crash Team Rumble before leaving its publisher in 2024?
Toys for Bob
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.
Q 17Which studio built Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, the remake that folded in 13 tracks from Crash Nitro Kart?
Beenox
Beenox remastered every original track plus Crash Nitro Kart's 13 for 34 at launch, and made the villain Nitros Oxide playable for the first time. The remake passed 10 million copies by June 2025.
Q 18Crash of the Titans, built around 'jacking' mutants, came from which studio that also made Crash Tag Team Racing?
Radical Entertainment
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.
Q 19Crash Bandicoot 5, cancelled after Crash 4 underperformed, was to feature a crossover with which PlayStation hero?
Spyro
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.
Q 20Which character was created as a girlish counterbalance to Crash's original girlfriend, to appease Sony Japan?
Coco Bandicoot
Coco Bandicoot, Crash's hacker sister, debuted in Cortex Strikes Back and first became playable in the third game, before the N. Sane Trilogy made her playable in all three. Charles Zembillas sketched her in March 1997.
A thylacine
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.
Q 24Which first-game Crash boss, a showcase of the Cortex Vortex's dangers, writes a book in the epilogue?
Ripper Roo
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.
Q 25Which 1972 film inspired Pinstripe Potoroo, the Crash Bandicoot boss who later opens a Chicago sanitation firm?
The Godfather
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.
Q 26Which colour did Naughty Dog pick for Crash's fur by elimination, after banning shades that bled on old TVs?
Orange
Orange survived after red was outlawed for bleeding on older televisions and other shades were judged to look bad on screen. The same screen worries gave him an oversized head.
Q 27Josh Mancell scored the first Crash Bandicoot through which production company founded by Mark Mothersbaugh?
Mutato Muzika
Mutato Muzika got the job after producer David Siller's pitch for an 'urban chaotic symphony' of bird calls, horns and flatulence was rejected. Mancell's track for the level 'Hog Wild' became the soundtrack's turning point.
Q 28Which publisher beat 3DO and Crystal Dynamics in a bidding war for Naughty Dog, offering space on a film studio lot?
Universal Interactive
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.
Q 29Which rewards in sapphire, gold and platinum tiers did Crash's third game add for beating a level's clock?
Relics
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.
Q 30How many crystals must Crash gather for Cortex across the five-level Warp Rooms of Cortex Strikes Back?
25
25 crystals, one per level, supposedly contain a planetary alignment's energy, but Cortex really wants them to power a brainwashing Vortex on his space station. Crash's sister hacks the hologram to warn him.