Crash Team Rumble is a fighting game where teams compete to get the most fruit. You run and jump through stages, shooting and attacking enemy players to stop them from getting fruit back to their base while trying to collect and secure fruit yourself. It's this fruit collecting dichotomy, paired with fast-paced combat, that makes it a unique take on the brawling genre where excellent teamwork and communication are just as essential as skill.

You can play as Crash, his enemy Dingodile, and a host of other famous faces from the Crash Bandicoot games, and play in team matches of up to four-versus-four on a selection of different stages. The gameplay revolves around finding and collecting fruit and bringing it back to your team's zone, where it gets added to your score. You also fight players from the opposing team, using a variety of long and short-range weapons to defeat them in fast-paced combat and steal their fruit.

Each character has their own unique skills and abilities, which can help out in a number of different scenarios, be that in traversal or combat, and utilising them to the fullest extent can help give your team the edge. Learning the layout of each stage and the best places to go to for defence, attack, and fruit collection can also help you overcome the other team. Working together as an effective team, where each person has different roles, each playing to that member's strengths, is essential; communication and planning a good strategy can be just as important, if not more important, than sheer skill.

The result is a novel twist on the fighting genre that combines fast-paced and frenetic fights with item collection and teamwork to create a unique game where deciding as a group on ambitious and experimental strategies is paramount to success.