Crash Bandicoot 4 makes the choice to return to a world map format closer to Crash Bandicoot 1 than the warp room setup of Crash 2 and 3. And while the team at Toys for Bob didn’t initially plan for it, the map actually provided the developers with a structure for how it wanted to introduce players to Crash 4’s story and difficulty.Speaking to IGN ahead of Crash 4’s launch, Toys for Bob studio co-head Paul Yan discussed the approach, as well as how the team set out to make the biggest Crash game ever. And initially, the team thought it would just continue the trend of Crash 3’s warp room map, but realized how the style of Crash 1’s world map better suited their designs.“We wanted to make sure that it was a follow-up to Crash 3,” Yan said when the team approached the whole project. “Part of that was making a presumption, ‘Oh yeah. We’ll just start off with the warp room format.’”
World maps are the best. Here’s a sneak peek at your path through Crash 4, out tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/6W0zvuX4OW
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) October 1, 2020
“As we went along further into our designs, we found that striking this balance between making sure the game is challenging, but also approachable and controllable was at odds with that format. We went back to that linear overworld map from Crash 1, and it gave us two really long benefits.”