While Crash has a number of offensive maneuvers at his disposal, his most distinctive technique is one in which he spins like a tornado at high speeds and knocks away almost anything that he strikes.

Before Crash was given his name (which stems from the visceral reaction to the character's destruction of boxes), he was referred to as "Willie the Wombat" for much of the duration of the first game's production.

[4] In Japan, Sony had used Captain Rock from Motor Toon Grand Prix as a de facto mascot during PlayStation's launch, although SCEA chose not to[5] and instead introduced the purpose-made Polygon Man.

[3] Wanting their mascot game to be multi-dimensional in character depth as well as gameplay, Gavin and Rubin chose not to base Crash around one attribute such as "fast" or "cute".

[14] Naughty Dog decided early on that there would be no connection between a real animal and Crash's final design, which would instead be determined "51% by technical and visual necessity and 49% by inspiration".

[3] Crash's head was made large and neckless to counter the low resolution of the screen and allow his facial expressions to be discernible.

[3] Crash was originally written by Pearson as a speaking character who, as a result of his subjection to the Cortex Vortex, communicated in a series of bizarre non sequiturs derived from classic literature and pop culture.

[15][16] The team ultimately decided that Crash would be mute because they considered past voices for video game characters to be "lame, negative, and distract[ing] from identification with them".

[17] Crash's jumping, spinning and bonking mechanisms were refined as the Naughty Dog team developed the levels "Heavy Machinery" and "Generator Room".

[18] While preparing for the game's demonstration at E3 1996, the team decided to finally rename the title character "Crash Bandicoot", a name credited to Kurosaki and Dave Baggett.

[13][19] The marketing director of Universal Interactive Studios insisted that the game and character be named "Wez/Wezzy/Wuzzle the Wombat" or "Ozzie the Otzel".

During a break following the initial meeting, Andy Gavin approached Charlotte Francis, the artist responsible for the renderings, and gave her fifteen minutes to close Crash's huge, smiling mouth to make him seem less aggressive, change his eyes from green to "two small black "Pac-Man" shapes" and make his spike of hair smaller.

[25] Upon beginning development of Crash Nitro Kart, Vicarious Visions chief executive officer and chief creative officer Karthik Bala noted that Crash's physical appearance had been inconsistent since his debut in 1996 and decided to "explore the original vision of the character" in an attempt to bring him back to his roots.

Charles Zembillas and Joe Pearson were tracked down and enlisted for guidance during development of the game and were faced with the challenge of evolving the character and the franchise visually while retaining their "cartoon-like charm".

Artist Nicholas Kole did not find photographic references to real bandicoots helpful in the design process, as his attempts to incorporate them resulted in a deviation from the character's spirit; Kole likened Crash's general design to an artist's attempt at drawing a bandicoot from memory a couple years after having seen one.

[28] Artist Ryan Jones took the liberty of omitting Crash's flesh-colored lips in favor of a simpler two-toned fur treatment, which was incorporated into his final design.

[29] Crash's lack of a neck was the most difficult aspect of his design for the development team's modelers to translate; as Kole observed: "He's just shoulders and then a head.

[35] Carlos Alazraqui provided his voice in promotional trailers for Cortex Strikes Back,[30][36] also switching out live performances as him with Tom Kenny at E3 1997.

[37] In the Japanese versions of the games, he was voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi up until the release of Nitro Kart, and by Makoto Ishii in Crash Boom Bang!.

[42] While he has a danger-loving, fearless nature and loves a good fight,[42][43] he prefers relaxing in the sun and rarely seeks out trouble deliberately.

[42] To the ire of his friend Crunch, but the amusement of his sister Coco, Crash is prone to impolite personal habits such as belching[44] or scratching his posterior.

[49] In the beginning of the series, Crash's sole offensive maneuvers were jumping onto his enemies and a distinctive technique in which he spins around like a tornado, kicking away anyone or anything that he strikes.

[56][57] In Skylanders: Imaginators, Crash has the ability to throw TNT crates, and can use his Yo-yo to bring in enemies to spin attack.

[41] As an act of revenge and to rescue a female bandicoot named Tawna, Crash travels through the Wumpa Islands, defeating Cortex's henchmen along the way.

Crash finally confronts and defeats Nina Cortex inside of the Doominator robot, liberates his sister, and averts the destruction of Wumpa Island.

[66][67] In The Huge Adventure, Crash is recruited to gather Crystals to power a device built by Coco that will reverse the effects of Cortex's Planetary Minimizer, which has shrunken the Earth to the size of a grapefruit.

[33] To promote the series comeback, various shirts, keychains, and other types of merchandise was officially licensed from Activision with Numskull Product Design.

[81] Doug Perry of IGN was critical of the character, seeing him as "insanely capitalistic", negatively comparing his voice to Luigi of the Mario series[82] and accusing him of being "the most see-through, copycat mascot that ever existed.

[83][84] Ryan Davis of GameSpot analyzed Crash's "overextended running style and self-punishing attacks" as establishing him as an "empty-headed but enthusiastic character", and compared his facial contortions to those of comedian Red Skelton.

[92][93][94][95] In 2024, a poll conducted by BAFTA with around 4,000 respondents named Crash Bandicoot as the fifteenth most iconic video-game character of all time.