The Jak and Daxter titles are revered as PlayStation adventure classics, and a pitch for a remaster from Sly Cooper devs, Sanzaru Games, has just been unearthed.
Before Uncharted and The Last of Us, the developers at Naughty Dogg were known for an entirely different series of games, also renowned as ‘one of the best’ in their respective genres. Jak and Daxter was an action-adventure platforming series of games often brought up as iconic titles that brought 3D platforming with a more action-centred approach, and was Naughty Dogg’s second foray into 3D platforming after Crash Bandicoot.
With the marsupial receiving a Remastered trilogy and a true sequel with Crash Bandicoot IV: It’s About Time, many fans have wondered about a potential Jak and Daxter remaster (after the PS4 collection). Fans have learned today that another remaster was pitched for the series.
Travis Howe, who served as a Senior Animator at Sanzaru Games (a game studio closed by Meta earlier this year), who worked on the Sly Cooper IP in the early 2010s, revealed that “a team was assembled to pitch a remaster of Jak and Daxter” years ago. Howe was clear in his LinkedIn post reveal that the pitch wasn’t commissioned by Sony and never became a formal proposal.
Howe insists it was a pitch of passion made to potentially gain the IP holder’s blessing to work on a full-scale project. The brief clip is a recreation of a cutscene where both protagonists have a banter-filled back-and-forth. The graphical style is remarkably cleaned up from the original, as both clips are shown side by side.
The message comes with a bittersweet tone, Howe writes, “A long while back, a team was assembled to pitch a remaster of Jak & Daxter. I was asked to animate an IGC shot-for-shot, to show what this updated version would look like,” adding, “Although the remaster wasn’t to be, I’m really proud of how it came together!” He ended on a hopeful note, saying that if fans want the remaster to be real, they should “get the word out”. He even credited character artist Tyler Bronis for his work on the small remaster clip.
Although this pitched Jak and Daxter remaster never happened, fans now know what it would have looked like for better or worse.
