The lovable Crash Bandicoot series has been, first and foremost, a platforming franchise since its inception. Across numerous entries, players have smashed crates, collected Wumpa Fruit and spun Crash across various levels. The Bandicoot has proven flexible with a number of successful spin-offs, though. Now Crash and friends are venturing into uncharted territory: online multiplayer. Crash Team Rumble may be the third party game from the Crash series, but it's the first to feature competitive online multiplayer. We recently got to check out the upcoming game to see how well this platforming franchise transitions to multiplayer.

Crash Team Rumble is a departure from the original formula, but not unprecedented. Crash has dabbled with different genres before. Developer Toys for Bob came up with this multiplayer concept during Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time’s development with the goal of taking the Crash DNA and marrying it together with competitive gameplay to create something that, in their words, is fresh and exciting.

First and foremost, Crash Team Rumble is not a MOBA as the reveal trailer may have led you to believe. In actuality, it's a 4v4 competitive game that utilizes its platforming roots to create something unique. Matches are fast-paced and take place on wildly-different arena-sized maps. The objective for each match is to collect Wumpa Fruit and bank it. The first team to bank 2000 Wumpa Fruit wins the match. Pretty straightforward, but the game also incorporates various Crash elements to make it more strategic.

For example, each map is littered with Gem Pads to encourage platforming. These pads boost scoring when all are captured, but enemies can also easily turn them to their side. These pads create a game of keep away, generating a balance between fighting over them and collecting fruit. An additional wrinkle to the game are Relic Stations, which are powered by collectible relics littered throughout the map. These stations introduce unique factors like encasing your character in a beach ball that allows you to easily knock enemies about. Each map contains an Epic Relic Station capable of swinging a match if activated. For example, one such epic relic we saw involved summoning Uka Uka and having him rain asteroids on the field.

What Relic Stations appear and how much platforming is involved depends entirely on the maps. In total, we got to see four, all of them inspired by locations from across the franchise. Just Beachy is a little flatter with its Epic Relic boosting Wumpa Fruit collection. Calamity Canyon is a vertical map with Nitrous Oxide firing laser blasts from his UFO. Tiki Towers is a solid blend of action and platforming and features the Uka Uka Epic Relic. Finally, an unnamed cave map was also shown. Overall, each of the maps shown looked fun and unique, though whether the game will launch with enough to keep the action interesting remains to be seen.

The final part of the equation are the heroes and their powers. Crash, Coco, Dr. Neo Cortex and the rest of the Crash roster are broken down into soft hero roles. Scorers like Tawna focus on platforming and collecting Wumpa Fruit, Blockers like Dingo aim to knock Wumpa Fruit out of enemies, and Boosters like Coco are more aligned with converting Gem Pads and activating relics. While each character has a role, they don’t have to fully follow it. Doing so, though, will help charge up your Power meter. Before each match, players will select a Power for use during the match. These include support Powers like the Healing Fridge, score bonuses like the Wumpa Stash or defensive plays like the Gasmoxian Guard. The full roster of playable heroes and powers is currently unknown.

To finish things out, we were able to see a whole match play out with the perspective switching between three different characters. We witnessed Tawna utilize her grappling hook to easily platform around the map and grab Wumpa Fruit, dingo use his vacuum to pull enemies in and blast them away, and Coco get free rein to take over the Gem Pads and summon rituals. According to the developers, matches in Crash Team Rumble are relatively fast, lasting anywhere between three to six minutes. While it did indeed look fun, we’re not quite sure the game has enough to hold your attention. Currently, it’s unknown how many different game modes there are, but Toys for Bob did rule out a single player story mode.

Players will get a chance to try out the game before it launches. A closed beta will take place for five days starting on April 20 and feature five heroes (Crash, Coco, Dingo, Cortex and Tawna), four powers (Healing Fridge, Wumpa Stash, Gasmoxian Guard and Fly Trap Spitter) and three maps (Just Beachy, Calamity Canyon and Tiki Towers). Unfortunately, this is a closed beta that requires you to pre-order the game. Toys for Bob wouldn’t say whether they intend on holding an open beta.

As for the full launch, Crash Team Rumble launches June 20 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 and Xbox One. It’ll launch with a standard $29.99 version that includes the Season One battle pass and a $39.99 Deluxe Edition that includes the Season One and Two battle passes, 25 instant unlocks and a cosmetic pack. The game looks fun, though we’ll need to see more content and gameplay before we can say whether the pricing and post-launch support are justified.