This article has a talk page!This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.
Crash Bandicoot: Worlds is the original pitch for Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex by Mark Cerny from 2000. After a fallout with Universal Interactive and Sony, Cerny left development and complete responsibility of the game moved to Traveler's Tales's hands.
Original Pitch#
Story#
''Neo-Cortex has turned the peaceful solar system of Tibon-coda into his own laboratory experiment. Each of the five once beautiful and serene planets in the system has been converted into a virtual chemistry set. He has subjected one planet to extreme heat, another to extreme cold, blocked out all sunlight from one, and flooded one with water. Then he has tried to create new species to survive in the extreme conditions. He has been employed by the ultimate evil - Elli Mental, her aim, to create the perfect battle-drones suitable to aid her conquest of the galaxy! Each of the planets has a Neo-Cortex controlled research centre, which keeps the planet in its extreme condition. Each research centre is protected by a Neo-Cortex experimental lifeform (Boss). Crash has to find the passkeys to the research lab from each level. Once he has all four keys he can access the research centre. He can then destroy the research base to return each planet to its natural state. He then has to defeat the world boss before he can get to the next planet. He then has to destroy Neo-Cortex's orbital space station and defeat Neo-Cortex and Elli Mental.
At this point, the story is completely different from what the final game presents. Putting the planets aside, as they are gone into detail later on in this page, Crash does not collect crystals at all - rather, he collects keys to unlock the planet's research base, similar to the keys that were a part of Crash Bandicoot from 1996. Instead of one character being the boss on all the planets, it would have been a different "Neo-Cortex experimental lifeform" on each planet that Crash would have to fight.
There is a hidden bonus item on each world. Crash needs to find all five of them. Crash will receive the bonus item if he rescues all the indigenous inhabitants that he sees in the world. There may only be inhabitants on one level in each world.
The "indigenous inhabitants" mentioned here and the following "bonus item" were both completely cut when the idea of traveling to different planets was scrapped.
Characters#
The game mentions that Crash is the only playable character in this vision of the game. Despite being a main character, Coco only appears to send Crash to different planets and to guide Crash through the level. Alongside Crash's basic moves that were present in the first 3 games, such as spinning, sliding, belly-flopping, and swimming, the game was also considering adding pole-climbing as something Crash could do. Years later, Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced finally added something similar as a feature. Crash was also meant to have the ability to move crates around, pointed out in the beginning of the pitch.
Neo Cortex is the bad guy. He is employed by the ultimate bad girl, Elli Mental. She wants him to master the elements of Fire, Ice, Light, and Water to enable her to take over the galaxy.
The pitch reveals that Cortex is used by a new character, Elli Mental, to help her take over the galaxy by using the elements to create minions that were heavily influenced by an individual element.
In addition to Elli Mental, there are several new characters created with the intent of adding more female characters to the series.
''1) A new character that will become Crash's love interest will appear in the game at key moments. She will be masked at first, and will help Crash out at key points. She will be kidnapped by Neo at the end of the game. (I think Crash was rescuing his girlfriend Tawna in the first game, so this may not work)
The general idea of the first described girl character was cut and a character becoming Crash's love interest was totally scrapped from the game.
''2) Coco's evil twin. Seperated [sic] at birth, QuoCo was raised in secret by Neo Cortex. She doesn't know that Crash is her brother. She is controlled by a mind control device. It is shaped like a letter 'N' and is attached to her forehead. She looks like Coco (obviously) except she has blue eyes instead of green and wears her hair differently. At the end of the game Crash can destroy the mind control device and rescue his sister from the clutches of Neo Cortex. She will appear in-game to try and direct Crash the wrong way at junctions or to lead Crash into the hands of enemies. (Coco appears in-game in a similar way to help Crash, so the player has to identify quickly which twin is which to avoid unnecessary problems.)
QuoCo, Coco's secret evil twin, acts as the groundwork for what became Crunch Bandicoot in the final story for The Wrath of Cortex as a lot of similar traits were shared between the two bandicoots. Both being raised in secret and finally brought out to stop Crash, QuoCo is controlled by Cortex using a mind control device in Worlds, and early outlines for The Wrath of Cortex's story bring up the fact that Cortex controls Crunch using a very similar mind control device (although it was completely cut from the final game). Crash also saves QuoCo by destroying the mind control device here just as he would have destroyed Crunch's mind control device. One feature that was cut was that Coco and QuoCo would have shown up in levels and told Crash which path to take, and the player would have to tell whether it was Coco or QuoCo giving them help.
''3) Neo Cortex's daughter Reo. Appears in cut scenes and in game. She is basically good and trys [sic] to help Crash when she can. Neo Cortex and Reo converse in a similar way to Dr. Evil and his son, Scott. Neo Cortex is bent on destroying Crash and Reo kind of likes Crash. Possible love interest. Neo may accidentally kill her at end of game while trying to kill Crash. Crash can save her is he is quick during end battle. Two endings, one sad, one happy.
Reo Cortex was the original version of Nina Cortex, Cortex's daught- errrr..... niece from Crash Twinsanity. Reo Cortex acts as a foil to Neo Cortex, in that despite being his daughter, she isn't hellbent on world domination like Cortex is. In one example the pitch gives, Reo Cortex likes Crash (to the point that she might have possibly fallen in love with him) while Neo Cortex hates Crash and will stop at nothing to kill him. Interestingly enough, Nina Cortex actually originally did follow Reo Cortex's personality of liking Crash and other cute things in her original appearance in Twinsanity before becoming a young evil genius that hated Crash and his friends in following games. Reo Cortex also would have tied into the outcome of the game during the final boss. Depending on how quick you were to save her, the game would have either ended with Neo accidentally killing Reo or Crash saving Reo from Neo.
Worlds#
Neo Cortex has reflected all the sun's light onto this [first] planet causing it to turn into a world full of volcanoes, deserts and molten lakes. Location features include deserts, molten metal lakes, volcanoes, burning forests, fire geysers, rock impacts launched from volcanoes, research base in crater of volcano, lava tubes, bubbling mud pools, steam jets, etc.
This planet is actually the one that is being replicated in the mockup video at the bottom of this page. In the final game, the fire elemental is the third one you encounter, and "Crash and Burn" (which was directly based off of this planet's description) is found in the fifth hub section.
''Neo Cortex has pumped ice into the core of this [second] planet causing the once tropical planet to freeze up. Location features include frozen forests, waterfalls, seaside town, avalanches, cracking ice, freezing water, research base on iceberg, crevasses, large snow balls.
The "ice" element was completely scrapped, albeit the fact that several levels are snow/ice themed in the final game. Interestingly, the iceberg research base was created verbatim in Twinsanity, and it acts as a "hub" of sorts in that game.
Neo Cortex has broken the water mantle surrounding this [third] planet, causing it to flood. Location features include swimming through flooded towns, jumping on debris floating on water, floating research base.
The water element is the second area in the final game rather than the third. Jumping across debris in flooded towns was repurposed into Coco's Japanese-themed levels in the final game, such as "Banzai Bonsai" and "Tsunami." However, swimming was added later in development in completely different levels that imitate Warped's underwater levels such as "Sea Shell Shenanigans."
''Neo Cortex has blocked out the sun plunging the [fourth] planet into darkness. Location features include gothic villages, spooky forests, gloomy lakes and pools, shadowy caves, iridescent lights.
The light/dark element was completely scrapped from the game. Dark levels from the original trilogy were brought into this game in the levels "Droid Void," "Crate Balls of Fire," and the level "Knight Time."
''[Neo Cortex's] spacestation has labs with specimens from each of the planets to contend with as well as varying gravity, from upside down to no gravity at all. Location features include the main reactor room, experiment labs, weapons array, outer hull, sub-reactor meltdown.
Interestingly enough, the idea of space station levels with upside-down gravity was done in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, the game that more or less retconned The Wrath of Cortex's entire existence. It's possible that the "sub-reactor meltdown" may have been repurposed into the level "Crate Balls of Fire" in the final version of the game. Earlier in the pitch, it says that the final boss would have been between Crash, Cortex, and Elli Mental inside the space station, similar to Crash facing Cortex and Crunch in the final game.
Level Structure#
There are five levels and a boss per world. The first four levels of a world can be accessed straight away. Once these levels are complete the research lab for that world can be entered. Once the research lab is completed you can face the level boss. When the level boss is completed you go to the next planet. Crash reaches each level by being "beamed" down to the planet by Coco. Once a planet is completed you can fly to the next one. You can revisit the planets that are already open. This paragraphs shows that the game would have actually departed a bit from the warp hub formulaCortex Strikes BackandWarped'' followed, as the 5th level would always be locked until you finished all the other four levels (which you could play in any order).
Level a) is 1/3rd linear and then opens up into an open area where you can rescue a creature. Then you can ride on the creature through the last 1/3rd of the level, which is linear again. This level format somewhat follows the prehistoric levels fromCrash Bandicoot: Warped, where you can make Baby T appear from a dinosaur egg and ride him through the level. However, you don't even ride on a single animal inThe Wrath of Cortex'', making it the first Crash game to not follow the "cute animal riding" formula the past games did.
''Level b) is 1/4th linear and then an open area where you can choose to go one of two ways. At the end of the two paths is another open area which leads to a single path. To access the single path you have to solve a puzzle such as put out the fire on the bridge using a Water Blast. The single path leads to the level end.
The "Water Blast" attack is not elaborated on at all beyond this, but it may be part of the scrapped Elemental crate feature.
Level c) is a linear forced scroll level. Level d) is a race/battle level. Level e) is the research base. It may have open areas and branching. It is unknown what a "battle" level could refer to in particular. Research bases were actually one of the few ideas fromWorldsthat made it to the final version ofThe Wrath of Cortex'', as every 5th level in the game is a research base related to the Elemental Mask you have to fight (with the exclusion of bonus levels). In this version of the game, the research base would have been where the planet's "control center" that kept its intolerable conditions running. By completing the level and destroying the center, Crash would return the planet to normal.
Mockup Video#
This video demonstrates a short CGI animation used to further push the pitch for Worlds that shows what Crash Bandicoot's next-generation PS2 gameplay would ideally look like. It emulates how a level on the first planet would have looked. The level shown here was actually turned into "Crash and Burn," a level used in the final release of the game. Some interesting things can be seen here, such as Crash using an otherwise unseen model but Coco using the same model she does in the final game.