But off that path are multiple smaller routes - caves, tunnels, and hills that massive snowballs roll down - all of which loop back onto the main path. It has a main path that players can follow that leads to the top of the mountain where Lurkers have built a small fortress. This area, which can admittedly be a pain to navigate through, is completely interwoven. Jak and Daxter‘s levels reflect that kind of open design, with each giving players a small area to run, jump, and pummel lurkers in. It’s like something straight out of Skyrim and Todd Howard’s infamous “See that mountain? You can climb it” line. This simple choice, which boils down to slapping down a totally static image, lends the game’s world an incredible amount of presence. These two areas, and many others like it, are often displayed on the horizon. They’re not some far-off part of the world, hidden from the player behind a skybox. Back in 2001, Naughty Dog bucked that idea for a platformer and instead made a game with an open and interconnected world.įrom Jak and Daxter‘s opening, players can see two other areas that they’ll adventure to later on, Misty Island and the Forbidden Jungle. Either way, it’s pretty likely that whatever game you’re thinking of has a hub world that players then select levels from or some kind of map, like Donkey Kong Country. It might be a Crash Bandicoot title or maybe something with Mario in it. Think about your favorite platformer for a second. But after replaying it now, as a significantly more jaded (and somewhat smarter) 25-year-old, it’s clear that after two decades, few games can even begin to touch what Jak and Daxter accomplished.
I didn’t know what Naughty Dog had done to elevate its platforming design or what tech went into the game. Playing Jak and Daxter as a seven-year-old, I couldn’t really appreciate what made the game so special.
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