Crash Team Rumble is a new installment in the series created by Naughty Dog that will focus on multiplayer. However, it has just been confirmed that it will mark the debut of a never-before-seen character in the series who is also the first non-binary character.
During Pride Month 2023, the studio responsible for Crash Team Rumble revealed that Catbat, one of their new characters, belongs to the LGBTQIA+ community, as they identify as neither male nor female.
Catbat is designed as a bat with feminine features but identifies as non-binary. Toys for Bob says they were inspired by the multifaceted singer David Bowie, as "a rock star who breaks certain expectations and has a confidence and talent that's simply magnetic."
Like Crash Bandicoot, Catbat was an experiment of the evil Dr. Neo Cortex until they escaped from their prison. Then, thanks to the kindness of a rocker, Catbat found a love for this genre and helped their fellow bats form a family to sabotage Dr. Neo Cortex's plans and put an end to his cruel experiments. This backstory was revealed through a comic book, and in Crash Team Rumble, Catbat will confront the villain again.
When Catbat was revealed in the announcement trailer months ago, the original character designer, Nicholas Kole, revealed via his Twitter account that the character was non-binary, and today, Dan Neil, creative director, and Paul Yan, one of the bosses at Toys for Bob, reaffirmed this.
Some people may think this is forced inclusion, but Toys for Bob does not consider it as such, as they believe it happened very organically.
Yan explained that after coming up with the design, the team naturally began referring to Catbat without specifying their gender (in English this is possible by using the pronoun they) and it was not something that required a meeting or anything like that, as some might think.
"From my perspective, a rock star was our goal that we aimed for with this character, and that defined everything derived from it. I don't think that 'how do we solve this? How do we give the character a gender?' was put first. While we talked about the character, it was most natural for us to talk about their personality and style more than these other [aspects]," Yan commented in an interview with Kotaku.
As a multiplayer game, Crash Team Rumble is not focused on the story, so the game will develop its characters through other materials such as comics. The game will not emphasize the personalities of the characters, but fans will be able to discover more about them separately.
"We didn't see it as a big problem, to be honest. It's a super cool character. It was just right. (...) There's no reason why we shouldn't acknowledge the way we perceive the character," Neil expressed.
It is common for those responsible for movies, series, or video games to want their characters to be interpreted by people who share their gender, so for Catbat, Toys for Bob chose Erika Ishii, a voice actress who defines her gender as fluid.
As a lifelong Crash Bandicoot fan, it’s a dream come true to join the universe as my new beautiful, angsty, non-binary bean (INSPIRED BY BOWIE!?⚡️)
— Erika Ishii (@erikaishii) June 7, 2023
Meet Catbat!!! 🐈⬛🦇 https://t.co/UY2j3EMtw2 pic.twitter.com/4lp463GcOy
What do you think of this new character from Crash Bandicoot? Let us know in the comments.
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