Activision has announced Crash Team Rumble is ending support next week.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, the game shares this popup message when it is loaded up today:
“March 4, 2024 will be the final content update for Crash Team Rumble.
The core game will still be live and players will have access to a free 500-tier battle pass that includes 104 new items. This will include all of the Battlepass content from Seasons 1 through 3, plus all the available event rewards.
Additionally, Crash Coin purchases will be turned off, and players can use their existing Crash Coins to purchase tier skips for the Battlepass.”
Crash Team Rumble was released on June 20, 2023, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. It is the latest AAA Crash Bandicoot game since the series saw a revival with the success of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remasters released in 2017. Prior to this, no new Crash Bandicoot games had been released in seven years.
Crash Team Rumble itself was not received well critically, and Activision did not share metrics on how many MAUs it had prior to end of support. But clearly, it did not last a year before the end of updates.
This announcement comes at an awkward time, but perhaps this was what we should have expected. Crash Team Rumble’s developer, Toys For Bob, had recently revealed that they will separate from Activision and Microsoft, and will now become an independent game studio again.
Toys For Bob also revealed that they would still like to work with Microsoft in the future, which seems to be a hint that they are willing and interested in making future Crash Bandicoot games. Fans of the franchise are likely to say that they would still be interested in playing a future Crash Bandicoot AAA platformer in the same style as prior games, and maybe a Spyro game too.
So, one can consider this the clean break that Toys for Bob is making with Activision, who had assigned them to supporting Call of Duty for many years. While Call of Duty is a proven commodity that kept hundreds of workers’ jobs secure for these years, a studio with the caliber of Toys for Bob could have been making hits out of their own games, and the fans knew it.
Toys for Bob may soon be pitching their own Crash Bandicoot and Spyro game ideas to Microsoft. Orr perhaps even more interesting, they could have some gestating game ideas they are about to launch now. Now that it seems that Crash Team Rumble has run its course, we’re looking forward to learning what Toys for Bob plans to do next.
