Report: Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is coming to Xbox Game Pass in August

What you need to know

• Developed by Vicarious Visions (now Blizzard Albany), the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is a remaster of the original three Crash Bandicoot games that launched in 2017.
• A report from leaker eXtas1s on the eXputer forums indicates that the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is coming to Xbox Game Pass in August 2024. 
• Windows Central understands that this is correct, and that this will be one of the next Activision-published games to join Xbox Game Pass following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard King.

More Activision-published games are headed to Microsoft's gaming subscription service. 

That's according to a report from leaker eXtas1s on the eXputer forums, which indicates that the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will be coming to Xbox Game Pass in August 2024. Windows Central's sources can corroborate this information, meaning Xbox players can look forward to embarking on adventures with the Wumpa-seeking bandicoot in a few weeks.

According to eXtas1s, the Tony Hawk 1+2 remake and Spyro Reignited Trilogy are also coming "very soon," though they can't confirm that these games will be added in the same month. 

The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is a remaster of the original three Crash Bandicoot games — which were first developed by a then-independent Naughty Dog — that was handled by Vicarious Visions, a studio known for its remaster efforts that is now part of Blizzard Entertainment as the Blizzard Albany team. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy was first brought to the PlayStation 4 back in 2017, before being ported to Xbox One, Windows PC, and Nintendo Switch in 2018. 

This will mark the second Activison Blizzard King title to join Xbox Game Pass since Microsoft's acquisition of the gaming company finalized in October 2023. The first game, Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo 4, was added to the service back in March. Looking ahead, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is slated to launch day one into Xbox Game Pass when it launches on Oct. 25, 2024.

Analysis: A slow drip-feed

More Activision Blizzard games in Xbox Game Pass will be cool, and I'm sure there's plenty of players who will be excited by this. While the dizzying breadth of genres that Xbox encompasses is extraordinarily comprehensive, family-friendly games are a weak spot that can often be overlooked, so having more family-focused games included in the lineup will be a great boon. 

I will say the rate at which these games are being added to the service is a bit surprising to me. I understand that Microsoft doesn't want to simply have one massive wave where everything is added and that's it, but still, I definitely assumed we'd have seen a couple more games be included in Xbox Game Pass by now. 

At the current rate, it's going to be a long, long time before Activision's back catalog is place in the subscription service alongside the rest of the Xbox first-party lineup from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks.