The idea of a new Jak and Daxter game in 2022 is both nostalgic and revealing. Naughty Dog has become so tied to The Last of Us and Uncharted franchises that it’s easy to forget about this dynamite duo. During the PlayStation 2 era, the Jak and Daxter series was the developer’s bread and butter, starting with Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001) and continuing with Jak II (2003) and Jak 3 (2004). Unfortunately, after the mixed reception for the offshoot Jak X: Combat Racing (2005), Naughty Dog was forced to focus its attention on the first Uncharted game. The last game in the franchise was Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, made by High Impact Games after being canceled by Naughty Dog, to generally above-average results.
What are the chances for a new Jak and Daxter game?
There’s a fairly good chance that we will see another Jak and Daxter game in the future. While there is no confirmation of a new title in the series, Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells stated in April 2021 that he “wishes” the developer was working on it. In conversation with Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price and in reaction to fans wanting a new Jak and Daxter adventure, Wells said:
“…I hate to break it to them, [but] we do not have Jak & Daxter here in development right now. But we still love the characters and I see what you guys [at Insomniac] are doing with Ratchet and that makes me wish that we did.”
Since The Lost Frontier, we’ve seen Naughty Dog remaster the original trilogy as Jak and Daxter Collection for PS3 and Vita, as well as emulations of multiple games in the series in the Jak and Daxter Bundle for PS4. While that might mean that the developer would skip over remastering these games again, it did announce The Last of Us Part 1 remaster for PS5, so the idea of Jak and Daxter remasters for current-gen consoles aren’t off the table. That said, Wells’ statement suggests that if a new game were made in the franchise, it would probably be more of a revival in the same vein as Ratchet & Clank on PS4 or A Rift Apart on PS5.
In February 2022, Uncharted movie director Ruben Fleischer also stated that he was working with PlayStation on a Jak and Daxter film adaptation with Tom Holland expressing interest in one. If it’s true, it would signal that PlayStation is ready for a new Jak & Daxter game to pair with it.
In other news, a new Fortnite update has fixed stability issues on multiple consoles, and the Skate 4 closed playtest has been cracked and leaked online with more details despite signed NDA agreements.