In a rare find, an unreleased game has been preserved in an Xbox development kit. The game would have been the first cross-over between Crash from Naughty Dog’s Crash Bandicoot series of games and Spyro from Insomniac’s Spyro the Dragon series. The game, titled Crash vs Spyro Racing, was found in an original Xbox console development kit, intact and running perfectly well.
The two mascots from Sony’s early gaming days could have faced off in what looked like a kart racing game, much like Mario Kart. Since the title was never mentioned by Xbox or Microsoft before, there’s not much known about the reason why the title didn’t see the light of day.
Crash vs Spyro Preserved Perfectly in the Xbox Dev Kit
YouTuber Modern Vintage Gamer found an old devkit for the original Xbox and got his hands on two unreleased titles, Ford vs. Chevy and Fast and the Furious. Now, a third game has been unearthed from the dev kit, titled Crash vs Spyro Racing. Both Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon have their own kart racing titles, but there was never a crossover between the two.
What’s more amazing is that the demo is playable and looks pretty good, with the title looking quite similar to cart racer games, which were quite popular back in the early days of Xbox and PlayStation. The demo features both single-player and two-player modes, with players able to race around a single track. During the race, players can add various assists and boosts and even take shortcuts to gain an advantage.
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Players can also add obstacles to the race to avoid being overtaken by others. It’s still a demo, meaning the game’s quite limited, and there’s not much else that players can do in the game except race around the same track, but the game does run quite well. Digging further, the developer was also able to find the game’s title in the hex file, containing the name Crash vs Spyro Racing.
The game’s intro video was also found along with the game, saved as a 640×480 movie file, containing the full motion video sequence for the game.
An Italian Article Mentioned the Unreleased Title’s Origins
An Italian article from March last year has detailed more of the game’s origins, along with some details about the developers of the game. LT Studio is said to have been involved in the development of Crash vs Spyro Racing in 2003, but the game was never released. LT Studio was a subsidiary of Argonaut Games, a British developer.
The same year saw another title, Orchid, by Argonaut Games, which was supposed to be released on GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox, but was also canceled after developers were asked for a facelift to make the game look more realistic. Argonaut Games did, however, release a Star Fox series of games for the SNES and two Harry Potter titles for the PlayStation.
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The title screen of the game is dated 2003; however, the build found in the development kit is dated March 4, 2004. In 2004, LT Studios, which was acquired by Argonaut Games around the same time, mentioned two active projects that were later shelved. It will remain to be seen whether the discovery of this long-forgotten title kickstarts a revival of the crossover that not many would have expected.
Would you be willing to play a remastered version of a kart racing game featuring Crash and Spyro? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Source: YouTube
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