Jak and Daxter

Jak and Daxter began in 2001, when Naughty Dog, fresh off the success of Crash Bandicoot, moved from the PSone to the PlayStation 2 and, with The Precursor Legacy, bet on a seamless platforming world with no loading screens, where the player controls the silent Jak and his motor-mouthed friend Daxter, turned into a small ottsel-like creature by magic water, exploring a connected landscape full of jumping, collecting and light puzzles. From the start the series leaned on its odd-couple duo of heroes and on a fairy-tale-tinged world that grew steadily darker, populated by mysterious Precursor artifacts and the Sages.

Jak II (2003) brought a sharp change of direction - an open city, guns, and a much darker tone - and Jak 3 (2004) carried that action-focused approach to its conclusion with a desert setting and vehicles; both are widely regarded as among the series' best entries. Alongside the core trilogy came the racing spin-off Jak X: Combat Racing (2005), the PSP title Daxter (2006) telling its own story around the sidekick character, and in 2009 the more casual Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, no longer made directly by Naughty Dog. The series was also revisited through the Jak and Daxter Collection on PS3 and Vita, released in 2012 and 2013. Whether platforming, shooting or racing, the series kept its distinctive humour and its pair of leads as its strongest asset throughout.

Naughty Dog was widely praised at the time for the technical side of the games - the seamless transitions between areas on the PlayStation 2 were something the studio took particular pride in, and the series helped cement its reputation as a team that could push the hardware to its limits. After Jak 3, though, Naughty Dog shifted its focus to a new franchise, Uncharted, and later Jak and Daxter entries were made outside the parent studio, which meant the series gradually faded from the spotlight, even as the first three games and their humour kept a loyal core of fans.