June 26th 2023.
Crash Team Rumble – Ready to Dislike
The latest Crash Bandicoot game, Crash Team Rumble, is an online multiplayer game aiming to mix platformer elements with that of League of Legends. When people talk about the acquisition of Activision by Xbox, they are usually referring to Call of Duty. While Blizzard and King have released many different titles, Activision gave up developing other games years ago, almost. To be more precise, Activision and Blizzard merged to become one company, and now Activision owns all the franchises that were previously published by Vivendi Games, including Spyro The Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. This fact was ignored for a long time.
However, after the cameo in Skylanders, Activision released the remake compilation Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which was a much bigger success than they had predicted. While the remakes were very well made, it is possible that the success was due to nostalgia. After that, it has been difficult for Activision to recreate that success. The Crash Team Racing remake and the brand new Crash Bandicoot 4 had nowhere near the same impact.
It was unclear what Activision would try next, but they are still trying to keep Crash’s name alive, possibly aware that he will likely become a target for Hollywood execs who want to continue the trend started by Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. Although, it is likely that a Crash-themed MOBA would not do much for his brand appeal.
MOBAs used to be very popular, but nowadays they are rarely spoken about. League of Legends and Dota 2 are still among the biggest games in the world, but other publishers soon understood that it was pointless to compete with them. This led to the Fortnite style bandwagon of clones being short-lived. This made it even more surprising that Activision chose that formula for their new Crash game.
Formula is not the right word to use though, as this is not just a generic MOBA rebranded with Crash characters. It is still a platformer, and Activision described the game as a ‘strategic platformer’, not a MOBA. This is not the first MOBA platformer, as Awesomenauts got there first, but Crash Team Rumble is still quite unique.
The concept of the game is very straightforward, as the only goal is to collect more wumpa fruit than the opposing team. The team consists of Crash’s family, Doctor Cortex, and a few other characters, both old and new. The 3D stages closely adhere to MOBA design principles, with three lanes and a variety of power-ups. The game is developed by Toys for Bob, who made Crash Bandicoot 4, so this is not a cheap cash-in.
However, there is just not enough content to keep the players’ attention. There are three class types: booster, scorer, and blocker. It is a bit strange that the different characters are not made unique, but since there are few people playing at the moment, it is difficult to judge how well balanced they are.
Boosters are definitely a waste of time, as the power-ups do not make enough of a difference for their abilities to be useful. As a result, the only important consideration is winning, which is not very fun at all. It is as if everyone gave up on the game halfway through development, and yet could not bring themselves to cancel it.
The Battle Pass suggests that the game was meant to be free-to-play at some point, but it is not. Even at a reduced price, the few hours of entertainment it offers are not worth the money, effort, or time.
It seems to us that the only obvious option for Crash Bandicoot now is to invest in a modern 3D platformer, something that Toys of Bob proved they can do very well with the Skylanders series. Whether Activision will want to invest that much, we will have to wait and see. But Crash Team Rumble is the kind of game that will be forgotten about in a week, and this is certainly not going to help with Crash’s already stalled comeback.
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