Crash Bandicoot 5 Allegedly Canceled After Studio Went Indie

Crash Bandicoot 5 Supposedly Shelved‘Project Dragon’ Also Scrapped

The world could have seen a Crash Bandicoot 5, suggested former Toys For Bob concept artist Nicholas Kole in an X (Twitter) post dated July 12th. The topic of the tweet was about Kole’s other canceled project called "Project Dragon" which have lead to users such as Sonic comic writer Daniel Barnes speculating that it was Spyro based on its title. Kole quickly clarified that it wasn’t Spyro and that it was a completely new IP with Phoenix Labs, but also took the opportunity to bring up Crash as well, as it may have ended the same way as Project Dragon did.

"It is not Spyro, but some day folks will hear about the Crash 5 that never was and it’s gonna break hearts," he commented.

Fans in the replies did not take the news well just as Kole predicted, with most responding with distraught and in shock with tweets such as "Hearing any sort of cancelled project news breaks my heart, but hearing about a cancelled Crash in particular stings harder than anything.."

Crash developer Toys For Bob split from Activision Blizzard earlier this year to become an independent studio, while Activision Blizzard was acquired by tech megacorp Microsoft. However, Toys For Bob is partnering with Microsoft Xbox for the publishing of their first solo game, and there are no concrete details to what it is or what it’s about as of writing.

The last Crash Bandicoot main title released was Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time back in 2020, which sold over five million copies. It was followed by endless mobile runner Crash Bandicoot: On the Run! in 2021 and online multiplayer Crash Team Rumble in 2023, with the latter having ended its live support last March with a final content update. However, the game is still available to play on new-gen consoles.

Now that Toys For Bob has more leeway as an independent game studio, only time will tell if Crash 5 will again see the light of day, and hopefully not keep eager fans waiting for a few more years.