You may recall that last month Crash Bandicoot 4’s character designer and illustrator talked about “the Crash 5 that never existed.” There were no further details on the game itself, but it heavily implied that Crash Bandicoot 5 was in the works, only to be canceled at some point during the game’s development.
Well, thanks to Did You Know Gaming in a new video released today, we now have more information. The canceled Crash Bandicoot 5 was supposed to be a crossover game with Spyro the Dragon, where Uka Uka would gain access to an interdimensional portal to travel to Spyro’s universe, use magic on the Dragon Elders, and threaten both Spyro’s and Crash’s worlds. Crash and Coco would come and go from Spyro’s world to thwart Uka Uka’s plans, while simultaneously meeting with Spyro and restoring the Dragon Elders.
In terms of playable characters, Nina, Cortex, and Coco are all considered. Meanwhile, there have been discussions about Crash Bandicoot and Spyro being playable together. For example, one idea floated around Crash riding on Spyro’s back. As for the game as a whole, other ideas were considered, such as collecting dragon feathers, the return of the Realms from the original Spyro game, and more gender-swapped alternate universe characters similar to those in Crash 4.
Unfortunately, the match never happened. Development for Crash 5 lasted just a few months from summer to November 2020, mostly involving concept art and pre-production early demo environments. Activision then canceled the game due to Crash 4 failing to meet sales expectations and Activision’s desire to move away from big-budget single-player games. You can check out Did You Know Gaming’s video about it below.