Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy - On this day

By entering the 21st century, game creators have largely acquired the knowledge and skill of designing three-dimensional worlds. With the arrival of the PlayStation 2 console, the second generation of 3D platformers began, in which the worlds were bigger and the characters more agile. Sony's platform in that era was enriched by a series of new games of this kind (Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, etc.), and the role of genre leader was taken by Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, which came out today exactly 20 years ago.

Jak and Daxter were born on the idea of a character called Boxman, and in the early version they were not conceived as a duo, but as a trio, because they would be joined during the game by a third character that players would raise within the game. Strong in the final version was the silent protagonist while Daxter had the role of a chatty assistant.

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Jak and Daxter enchanted us with their open gameplay, mini-games, and cute looks. Thanks to the then advanced PlayStation 2 hardware, we were able to have more connected areas/levels in the game that we reached without loading.

The gameplay of the game was based on traditional platformer elements - jumping and collecting, and the mechanics of using colored energy in six variations were added to it. Green served to restore health, blue accelerated the movement of the character, red increased his attack power, etc. This energy was due to the race of Precursors, which is also the explanation for the subtitle of the game.

Jak and Daxter sold over a million copies just a year after their release, which was a great result at the time. Two more sequels to the main series followed, and several spin-off titles for the PlayStation Portable, including one racing game.

Six years ago, the main series was remastered in HD for PlayStation 3 and PS Vito. From 2017, Jak and Daxter games can also be played on the PlayStation 4 console, exclusively in digital form.