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2021 is one of the biggest years for video game anniversaries in recent years, with many beloved games and franchises celebrating major milestones this year such as The Legend of Zelda, Halo, Resident Evil, and more. One such franchise is Crash Bandicoot, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, made better by the fact that the franchise has been active since the release of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy in 2017. While no game to celebrate the 25th anniversary has been announced yet, fans are speculating that publisher Activision is preparing to announce a new Crash game very soon.
Crash Bandicoot made its debut on the PlayStation on September 9, 1996 as an exclusive title for the platform, created and developed by Naughty Dog. The developer followed the game up with two sequels and the racing spin-off Crash Team Racing releasing over three subsequent years until the franchise was revoked by publisher Vivendi Games and handed to multiple other developers. After Vivendi Games was acquired by Activision, the Crash Bandicoot series was put on hold until 2017, when Vicarious Visions released Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, a collection of remakes of the first three titles, reviving the series.
Since then Activision has released Crash Bandicoot games almost yearly, with the only exception being 2018, in which the publisher instead released Spyro Reignited Trilogy, remaking the first three games in the Spyro the Dragon series. In 2019, developer Beenox released Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled and in 2020 Toys for Bob released Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, the first original entry in the series in almost a decade. Now, it appears a much rumored multiplayer focused Crash Bandicoot game may be announced as early as tomorrow, as Activision has begun teasing the announcement of Wumpa League.
Earlier this week Activision sent select influencers a celebatory Crash Bandicoot 25th anniversary care package with a wumpa fruit pinata, similar to rollouts the studio has done before other Crash and Spyro related announcements. Following this the official Crash Bandicoot Twitter account released a tweet captioned "That feeling you get when you hear there's a certain party right around the corner," likely referencing PlayStation's upcoming showcase planned taking place tomorrow, September 9th, coincidentally the 25th anniversary of the release of Crash Bandicoot.
Looking at this combined with the packages influencers have received, it is almost undeniable that some Crash Bandicoot related announcement is incoming, whether it is the much rumored Wumpa League or not remains to be seen. Earlier this year it was believed development on Wumpa League as well as a new Spyro game was halted due to Activison's reorganization of its studios around the Call of Duty franchise, with every studio believed to be working on the franchise for the majority of 2021.