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After NECA’s director of product development suggested that Crash Bandicoot is coming back, a representative for the toy company says his comments were “misunderstood”.
Over the past week, the Internet has been in a frenzy concerning rumors of a Crash Bandicoot reboot. When PlayStation Middle East posted a teaser on social media, recognizing that the iconic platformer is a ‘most wanted’ character, fans were convinced that news of a new game would soon follow. The hype was only increased even more when Randy Falk, the director of product development at NECA, told one publication at the New York Toy Fair that “ they’re bringing Crash Bandicoot back“.
Unfortunately, it now appears that Crash Bandicoot may not be making a comeback after all. Speaking about the reboot claims, a representative for NECA toldthat “it’s not the case” and that someone simply “misunderstood” a comment that Falk made. What actually happened, said the rep, is that “Randy saw a faked fan-made image right before he came to the show and said that if the game were coming back, we’d love to do figures”.
On the one hand, it’s easy to see how Falk may have been fooled by a fan-made image. There are certainly some talented fans out there and as speculation surrounding a reboot continues, it stands to reason that more mockups are being published online. Some fans aren’t convinced by NECA’s statement however, suggesting that as NECA has worked with Sony on several occasions (including Uncharted 4 , LittleBigPlanet and God of War ), the toy making company may be privy to certain information and may have let the cat out of the bag here.
This could all just be wishful thinking on the fans’ part, of course, but it’s hard to blame them. On top of the aforementioned Sony tease and the NECA slip-up, Shawn Layden, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, wore a Crash Bandicoot t-shirt at the PlayStation Experience event in December. There are plenty of rumors that Sony now owns the Crash Bandicoot license (Activision took down the Crash Bandicoot website and the franchise was removed form the publisher’s Wikipedia page) but officially, it still belongs to Activision and so many saw Layden’s attire as a sign.
Moreover, 2016 is Crash Bandicoot ‘s 20th anniversary. Sony has been known to commemorate that milestone, as shown by the limited edition PS4 with PS1 colors, and an announcement could be a good way to celebrate. Plus, the PS4 is now able to play PS2 games and some see that as a way for Sony to remind people of what made the series great before the company announces a reboot. This is all speculation for now, though, so fans will just have to wait and see.
Source: GameSpot