According to Activision, the N. Sane Trilogy was the best-selling physical game worldwide in June 2017, despite having been released on the tail end of that month and being available for only two days. It was also the best-selling game on the PlayStation Store for both June and July.
The game was built in Vicarious Visions' Alchemy engine, which is best-known for powering the Skylanders games. The first prototype even used a Skylanders character in an early version of N. Sanity Beach. An older version of the engine (known as Intrinsic Alchemy before being purchased by Vicarious Visions) was also used in Crash Nitro Kart.
Vicarious Visions was given the original level geometry by Sony as an initial starting point, before recreating everything else. There were five levels they could not find, which had to be recreated from scratch.
There were many merchandise deals done to promote the game, including ties with companies such as First4Figures, Numskull, Loot Crate, Hot Topic, and Macy's, among others.
One of Crash's new idle animations was the winning entry in a contest held by Vicarious Visions, where fans would submit their ideas to have them in the game. Specifically, it's the animation where Crash and Aku Aku play volleyball using a Wumpa fruit. This idea was created by Simon Davidian and Kirsty Capes, and you can see it below:
Fun Facts and Easter Eggs
This was the first Crash Bandicoot game since 2010's Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2. Crash's only official appearances between both games were in 2016, first as a playable character in Skylanders Imaginators, and later as a guest in the TV show Skylanders Academy.
It was also the first Crash Bandicoot game officially released for PC.
When you leave Coco idle, her phone plays her own theme from Crash 2 as its ringtone.
When Coco's phone battery shortens out and explodes, the explosion actually has an effect on nearby objects. This can kill Coco if she's near an explosive crate.
Coco reacts to Crash's idle animations in the Time Twister. For example, she laughs when a Wumpa fruit drops on his head and she joins him when he starts dancing.
The license plates on the third game's road hogs read "96-17". 1996 was the year the original Crash Bandicoot came out, and the N. Sane Trilogy was released in 2017.
Coco has the paw print from Naughty Dog's logo on her laptop (the full logo used to be there in the original games). It also has Vicarious Visions' own logo.
The same paw print can be seen carved on the asteroid that floats by in the Crash 2 intro.
In the Crash 2 intro, Coco is watching a playthrough of Uncharted 4. Specifically, she's watching the part of the game where Nathan Drake plays the original Crash Bandicoot. How meta.
The shelf inside Crash's house has a picture of Uncharted's Nathan Drake in the WARPED intro.
Some of the books in Ripper Roo's library from Crash 2 are titled War and Pieces, a reference to the book War and Peace.
There's a reference to an exploit in Tiny's original WARPED fight. Hiding in the upper-left corner so that the lions can't get you prompts the lab assistants in the crowd to throw cheese at you ("cheesing" is a common term for getting around a large number of enemies).
When Coco is typing on her laptop, you can see that she's accessing the Reddit page for Crash Bandicoot. This is a reference to how often the developers consulted that community for feedback during development.
The extra level Stormy Ascent was actually created for the original PS1 version of the first game, and it's even fully playable through a GameShark code since the data is all in the disc. Learn more about it here.
Released in July 2017, Stormy Ascent became a paid level from September 2017 to June 2018.
Stormy Ascent has the longest time requirement for a sapphire relic in the series (7'00''00). Sunset Vista has the longest one for a platinum relic (3'41''85).
Every PS4 copy of the game shipped since June 29, 2018 contains the two extra levels Stormy Ascent and Future Tense already on the disc, as well as version 1.06 of the game.
