Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fuelled - 8 Ways To Blow The Original Out The Water

It was a rumour that began as a tiny acorn when the N Sane Trilogy first came out, but it’s been growing slowly and during The Game Awards it burst into a mighty oak as it was confirmed: Crash Team Racing is back.

The remaster, subtitled as Nitro Fuelled, is due for a summer 2019 release. That will mean that since between then and summer 2017, the three original Crash games, the three original Spyro games and Crash’s best ever spin off (fight me Bash fans) will all have had their HD makeover. Get out your Dairylea Lunchables and your Discmans; the 90s is making a comeback.

And just like N Sane Trilogy and the Reignited Trilogy, the trailer alone has kickstarted waves of nostalgia and hype. Both of those collections managed to add things in while staying true to their roots.

Being a kart racer, there won’t be any Need For Speed style chop shop. Rather than boosting your stats by slowly upgrading and fine tuning your vehicle, each character comes with a set of skills. Some have better acceleration, others have much tighter turning circles and some are just good all rounders. However, this time around there will definitely be a bit more to it.

Adding ‘Nitro’ to the title isn’t just a random racing buzzword. Obviously there’s the Nitro crates in Crash and villain Nitros Oxide, but it’s likely also a reference to Crash Team Racing’s follow up, Nitro Kart.

While this game doesn’t have the iconic status of CTR, it’s still moderately popular amongst Crash fans. The trailer seemed to have the Nitro Kart models featuring, as well as the original ones remastered.

Considering the original game had great balancing between the cast, any changes may well be cosmetic. Simplicity made the game great and overcomplicating things may alienate new players. Still, with two models per character and perhaps the choice to choose our own colour scheme, it’s a small change that could make a big difference.