While many game companies are successfully reviving older franchises for today’s players, Sony has notably left Jak and Daxter untouched. But it wasn’t for lack of effort. According to veteran animator Travis Howe, a team he worked with previously pitched Sony on the idea of remastering the original Jak and Daxter game.
Howe explained that he personally recreated an early cutscene from the game, frame by frame, to demonstrate the visual style to Sony as part of a pitch. He emphasized that Sony didn’t request or contribute to this recreation. He also gave credit to Tyler Bronis, a senior character artist at Sanzaru Games, for his work on the animated short shown as part of the pitch.
A while ago, a team put together a proposal to remake Jak & Daxter. I was asked to create an animated scene, recreating an existing one exactly, to demonstrate how the updated game could look. Just to be clear, this wasn’t ordered or supported by Sony – it was a fan-made pitch intended to get their approval.
The recreated cutscene looks fantastic, using today’s technology to improve details like Daxter’s fur and visual effects. These things were much more difficult to achieve on the original PlayStation 2.
Bronis shared that the initial project idea dates back to 2019. He personally worked on updating Jak’s character model, creating environment art and lighting, and handling the camera angles and editing.
The video has been well-received, even earning praise from Josh Scherr, a former writer and narrative designer at Naughty Dog. Scherr, who previously worked on the Jak and Daxter games, was actually an animator on the specific scene featured in the video.
Scherr, one of the original animators from 2001, commented on the remake, saying, “It looks fantastic! Back then, we each had to create about 30 seconds of animation every week, so it’s great to see the scene so polished now.”
The Jak and Daxter series hasn’t seen any new releases or announcements in quite some time. The last official update came in 2021 when Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells stated they weren’t currently developing a new Jak and Daxter game. He mentioned this during a conversation with Ted Price from Insomniac Games, after being asked if Naughty Dog still receives requests for a new game in the series.
He confirmed they’ve noticed a lot of demand for a new Jak and Daxter game. People have been consistently tweeting at them, not just with simple requests, but with elaborate, creative content like Photoshopped memes, showing a significant amount of effort and dedication.
“And I hate to break it to them, [but] we do not have Jak and Daxter here in development right now.”
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2026-03-26 19:12