LOS ANGELES—The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy lands on consoles next week, and, from what I can tell, the game will offer very little in the way of surprises. All three of the series’ original PlayStation 1 games are coming back in a single package. From what I’ve played at multiple events, every brutally tough platforming level seems to be returning with faithful controls and substantially redrawn, HD-friendly graphics.

Activision invited Ars to check out the near-final game one more time ahead of its June 30 launch, and, for some reason, they thought the most exciting news they had to offer was a new playable character. (Crash’s sister, Coco, will be playable in all three games, but she’s a cosmetic swap with zero unique moves.)

But after hammering developer Vicarious Visions with question after question, I got something more interesting out of the team: the amount of from-scratch work that was required to make this remaster.