Crash Bandicoot looks set for a return in animation form with a new series on Netflix.
What’s on Netflix reported that the animation studio behind Sonic Prime, WildBrain Studios, is making the Crash Bandicoot adaptation for the streamer. WildBrain Studios has worked on plenty of animations for Netflix, including Carmen Sandiego, Malory Towers, and the aforementioned Sonic Prime. As What’s on Netflix points out, this is the first time Crash Bandicoot will front his own series. There is no release window nor plot details for the Crash Bandicoot animated series yet.
As for the Crash Bandicoot video game series, it’s been quiet for some years now. After 2018’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy came out, Activision released Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled in 2019, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time in 2020, Crash Bandicoot: On the Run! in 2021, and, most recently, Crash Team Rumble in 2023. Support for the latter ended less than a year after launch.
Is there a new Crash Bandicoot video game in the works? Last year, it was reported that Microsoft, which brought Crash Bandicoot under its umbrella after shelling out $69 billion for Activision Blizzard, had reached an agreement with former Crash Bandicoot developer Toys for Bob for the studio’s next game.
In February 2024, Toys for Bob announced plans to spin off from Microsoft-owned Activision to become an indie developer. Toys for Bob is the developer behind Skylanders, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and Crash Bandicoot games, but in more recent years had become a Call of Duty support studio.
At the time, Toys for Bob said it was exploring "a possible partnership between our new studio and Microsoft,” adding both Microsoft and Activision were "extremely supportive" of its new direction. While Toys for Bob's first project as an indie studio is apparently "in the early days," fans speculated it could be a revival of Crash, Spyro, or another IP Toys for Bob has become known and beloved for.
As for Netflix, continuing to invest in video game adaptations comes as no surprise given the success it’s seen doing so already. It has animations for everything from Splinter Cell to Tomb Raider, Castlevania to Cyberpunk. And of course it enjoyed critical acclaim from the League of Legends animated adaptation, Arcane. It’s now working on adapting board games, with Catan, Clue!, and Monopoly shows in the works.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
