Footage from a Jak and Daxter Remake Pitch Surfaces

In the days before Uncharted and The Last of Us, Naughty Dog was known to most gamers for two other franchises - Crash Bandicoot, which arrived in 1996, and the Jak and Daxter series, which first saw the light of day in 2001. Both series brought us several good games and built relatively large player bases, but over the years the studio moved on to other projects, primarily under Sony's ownership. The last Jak and Daxter game came out in 2009, and when a collection of the first three games was released for PS4 in 2012, that's more or less where the story of the game series ended.

A few days ago, a post went up on LinkedIn by Travis Howe, an animator at SANZARU, giving us a glimpse of a short video intended to secure Sony's approval to develop a remake of Jak and Daxter. Travis was the lead animator who worked on that pitch, which was apparently submitted to Sony and rejected in 2018. As you can see from the video, the proposed remake of that game looks simply stunning, with more detailed environments and characters that look much better. Beyond Jak and Daxter themselves, it's hard not to feel a sense of what could have been when you see what we could have gotten if Sony had given their approval. As of now, it doesn't look like Sony has any new plans for Jak and Daxter, and perhaps this is another reminder that even good things come to an end.