The original Crash Bandicoot was released for the Sony Playstation twenty years ago today, September 9, 1996. He’s not getting any younger and will resemble the “coot” portion of his name before too long. But it could have been different had his name remained “Willy the Wombat.”
In 1994 Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin of Naughty Dog began experimentation with a 3D platform action game (a new notion at the time). The miniscule processing power of the PS1 made it impossible to display as many items and enemies onscreen as the team wanted. This gave them the idea to fill those empty spaces with breakable boxes, giving variety to the number of obstacles and adding puzzle and mystery elements. Originally conceived due to limitations, the boxes are now a staple of Crash gameplay — and ended up giving “Willy the Wombat” his more familiar name, since so much destruction was now involved.
The near-death of the mascot platformer genre has kept Crash in mothballs for an entire decade, but he’s back (sort of) and ready for a new adventure in Skylanders Imaginators this fall. As a birthday present, Activision released this special gameplay video from Crash’s level, Thumpin’ Wampa Islands. It’s full of references — Activision says they’ve included 20 tributes to Crash’s past in this video alone. Can you find them all?
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