Crash On The Run is OFFICIALLY Dead... And I'm Not Happy

Crash On the run, the Crash Bandicoot Mobile Runner game, is officially dead. King came forward and announced it a month ago, but the way they went with it was Awful. How could Crash on the Run be canned when Crash Team Rumble was just RIGHT around the corner? Let's talk about it.

[dudeguy]

What I'm most upset about isn't the fact that the game will disappear; I actually don't really care much about mobile games. What REALLY angers me is the lack of communication on King's part. There's no excuse for leaving everyone in the dark for over a year, then "Suprise! The game is dead!" Absolutely unacceptable.

[Dribbleondo]

This game was literally made for this type of mobile game...an endless runner! But King has gotta be King and...well...SOMETHING behind the scenes happened that we're not privvy to.

For me, the game was a "waiting on timers" simulator, with far too many collection runs to be worth my time. They managed to make Crash boring, and that is a hell of an achievement. Shame too; I really like these designs of the cast. Ah well.

[Lucario]

Honestly when I saw King's logo come up after booting the game I straight up was like "oh boy, this game probably not gonna last long." This just proves King doesn't care for games that aren't named "Candy Rush".

[Zenlore]

What’s weird is how silent they were for so long. I wonder what was happening?

[A-Nationverse]

I really think that Crash On The Run could’ve be just a mobile game and not a live service game. Most live service games like Fortnite and Fall Guys will have micro transactions in it. To make the game last longer, they would need to get constant updates by fixing bugs and glitches and adding new stuff to the game. This game has the potential to bring in new audiences that has never played a Crash Bandicoot game before. It was really a missed opportunity for Crash On The Run shine. I really hope that this doesn’t happen with Crash Team Rumble.

[SuperShadowGuard]

Welcome to modern gaming: the moment a game stops being profitable, the moment they axe it

[BrandonLeopardGaming]

Crash On The Run actually accumulated over 60.4 million downloads, and because of those Downloads, it caused more people that downloaded Crash On The Run, to Buy Crash Bandicoot 4 It's About Time, and the two Crash Remakes as a result, I'm betting that's Crash Bandicoot 4 It's About Time has over 10 million units sold as a result of the number of downloads of Crash On The Run.

[knidsh]

I'm really starting to dislike the brand strategies they're employing with Crash Bandicoot. There's no way in which the complete deletion of this game, plus all the delay that came with announcing project Lava, are beneficial to the franchise. At all.

[snailgirl]

Oof. I never even got into this mobile game, and this news is SOUL CRUSHING. This is the increasingly dark side of digital gaming; what is here today could be ripped away at any time....

[qunetinconway-greenhill]

Crash on the Run was so close to being a fantastic game. King didn't care for it, it didn't make it better, King killed their game. Crash on the Run could've been one of the most creative running games of all time, but it's now dead. Their was so much potential for this game and it just stings that I'll never be able to see it grow.

[ChrisLP]

When I said the game was DEAD, after 10 months since launch, I was banned from their Discord just for being "a pessimist".
I've spent money on this game, I'm a Crash fan since '99, it's a shame on one hand, but it's also a slap in the face of those King-suckers, when I was the only one skeptic about it BEFORE launch, solely for the fact of King being behind the first Crash mobile game, they make match-3 games, for Coco's sake. You should make a video about King itself, they need to suffer for this and get the negative attention they deserve.

[emiliesyverson]

I was SUPER INTO this game at its peak. I was consistently the #1 player on my team, which in turn was Top 3 many seasons in a row, up through around the time they "temporarily" cancelled the Seasons entirely.

Imo, here's what ultimately killed it.

- They "temporarily" discontinued the multiplayer Seasons. Not only did this probably decrease their revenue -- as a lot of us bought the Bandicoot Pass for extra prizes during each season -- but it also killed the multiplayer aspect of the game entirely.

- That multiplayer aspect was important, imo, because if you got hyperfixated and super into the game like I did -- which is generally a goal for these kinds of casual mobile games, get you hooked -- it wasn't long before you made your way through all of the core game content. Once you unlocked Upstream, the final level "so far", and beat all of the bosses, the game no longer had any point without new content added.

- The reason for suspending Seasons was to divert resources back toward improving and expanding the core game. This never happened.

- Around the time I stopped playing -- by which time this was partly bc it was hemorrhaging users, including my former teammates from a Crash Bandicoot Discord server I frequent -- they introduced a really shitty UI update that really stripped a lot of the visual charm and character out of the game. This didn't help.

- Some of the UI change may have occurred because from the game's launch onward, the main screen had featured several "Coming Soon" areas. By the time of said UI change, it had probably become apparent that those elements -- marked on the map by Crash's jetboard, Coco's jetski, and a couple of other things -- were never going to be developed.

It's kind of sad, because for a stretch of time, they actually had a pretty successful game. Then they fucked with it and everyone left.

[NintendoTV]

This, right here, is why physical media is so important in this day and age. With physical media, you can never lose the content stored on that particular unit, be it base game content or content you've already downloaded into the game, and it will always be with you forever. Rendering something lost media not only means it is permanently gone, never to be seen again, but also results in pretty much nothing good coming out for any parties involved. It happened with Dr. Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 35, and now it's happening with Crash: On the Run as well, and in all 3 cases, it's nothing short of disheartening. This is why Keep Circulating the Tapes is one of my least favorite tropes of all time; companies seem to practically enforce it nowadays in regards to their products.

[cookiesontoast]

I never liked this game but it is strange to see it taken down, you would think they'd leave it up in some form or another.
My favourite thing about this game was the redesign it gave Spyro, it may not be the best design but I think it looked pretty interesting and unique.

[Wolfric_Rogers]

It's a shame. Illumix did the exact same thing with FNaF AR; promised new content, took a suspiciously long break (only an entire year!), claimed that they were still working on the game, then announced its cancellation a while later out of nowhere.

[koolkvs]

If I had a nickel for every time Activision killed a mobile game of their popular kid friendly franchise only after a few years, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.

[camcam_burger]

The worst thing about this is that the app used to be playable offline a few updates ago. They must've forced online at some point to prevent cheating in items or something.

[unclepaul]

Well Blame Activision!

Imagine Paying for this Game, and then it’s no longer Playable! It’s like spending money for a Limited Game!

[danielivey]

I played Crash Bandicoot: On the Run for several months in 2021. Eventually it got too grindy and I lost interest in playing it on my iPod, but I thoroughly enjoyed the time that I had. This is a major public relations disaster for King, going radio-silent for 14 months and then announcing on December 19th, 2022 that the game would be shut down in nearly two months time.

[natarthegreatar]

i was absolutely heartbroken when i read the announcement that the game was ending, and furthermore when i realized i could never play it again. i’m part of the hypothetical 0.5% that adored the game, i didn’t finish every island, but i had definitely spent months grinding out the game and even went back to it within the past few weeks, even without the addition of any new content. i was disappointed initially with the UI change because it got rid of a bunch of “coming soon” features, but then to see that the game was being wiped from existence explained why that happened. i think the thing that makes me the most upset is just how nonchalant they’re acting about the whole thing. there was absolutely no communication to the fans, and seeing the king support conversation, there probably wasn’t a whole lot of internal communication happening either. i hope to see this getting more attention, because i’m not too happy with how my boy crash is being handled atm