If you've been paying attention to the leaderboard for the past two days, then you've probably noticed some pretty big changes to it, namely the addition of something called "Cross-Game" and Full Trilogy now being split between "File Fusion" and "No File Fusion".

To keep it simple, a pretty huge discovery was made, but to properly explain what it entails, I think it's best to explain basically how the entire past two days have gone, the decisions we have made, and why we made them. This discovery is very recent so we're still figuring much of it out ourselves, so there could be more developments in the future. But this is what has happened so far:

1. How we found "File Fusion"

Potty was doing Crash 3 108% runs, when he wasn't paying attention upon rebooting the game and accidentally managed to start Crash 1 and Crash 2 at the same time. The end result was him loading into Crash 1 at Nitrus Brio, but also with 42/25 Gems and 100% completion. The video for this can be found here:

Basically, Potty loaded Crash 1, but the game loaded his most recent Crash 2 save file instead of a Crash 1 file, as the most recent thing he did was hit Continue on Crash 2. The end result was him being in Crash 1, but with items and percent from Crash 2 instead. As for why he ended up at Brio, the game probably saw that this file was at Cortex, the 5th boss, in Crash 2, so it put him at the 5th boss in Crash 1, which is Nitrus Brio.

After Potty shared this in the Discord server, Crodi began to mess around with it and was able to do it from starting a New Game in Crash 1. With this, he was able to automatically go to Brio at the beginning of the run, therefore finishing Crash 1 in less than 5 minutes, seen here:

We immediately started discussing whether this should be allowed in Any%. After a while, we ultimately concluded that because it requires an already existing Crash 2 file (that has made it to Cortex), it is NG+ and therefore should not be allowed for Any%. However, it does have application in Full Trilogy because you can use a Crash 2 file that you make within the Full Trilogy run itself (by completing Crash 2 first), and is not considered NG+ there.

Thus, we split both Full Trilogy categories by adding a new variable called "File Fusion" (which is the name we decided on for this glitch). "Full Trilogy - File Fusion" is the category that uses this glitch, while "Full Trilogy - No File Fusion" is FT Any% and 315% as we already knew them. As for Crash 1, we decided to add NG+ Any% and NG+ All Gems to account for runs that would use a pre-existing Crash 2 file to set it up.

2. And then Crash 3 got involved

The next day, Crodi managed to do File Fusion using Crash 3 instead of Crash 2. With this, he started a New Game from both Crash 1 and Crash 3, then immediately went into Crash 3, did Gate Clip to enter Bug Lite, and then quit and went back into Crash 1. This loaded him at Castle Machinery (the 25th level in Crash 1), and he was then able to finish Crash 1 in less than 9 minutes:

This opened the discussion up again, because this was not NG+; it requires no pre-existing files and is possible the moment you start up the game for the first time. However, it does require leaving Crash 1 and playing Crash 3, and the discussion ultimately boiled down to should we allow "game jumping" in the single game categories.

We eventually decided that no, we should not. The single game categories are precisely that: single game. Even if NST can technically be seen as one game, it is also a collection of three, and the single game categories are intended for you to only play one of those three games. Switching to another game, even if you don't complete said other game, did not seem like it should be a thing.

With that in mind, JHobz proposed keeping the current categories as they are, but also introducing a new group of categories that do allow switching between games. Pretty much everyone involved in the discussion was onboard with this idea, so we decided to make the "Cross-Game" categories. This also rendered the Crash 1 NG+ categories created the day before redundant and unnecessary, so they were removed.

3. Alright cool. But what does this all mean? (i.e. a TL;DR)

• All of the categories as you knew them still exist. The single game categories all just now have rules that specify that you cannot 1) play any other game besides the one game in question, and 2) load a save file that was not created during the run itself (this was already implied to be a rule, but it's just specifically stated now). These two rules cover all the bases of File Fusion and essentially bans it from being used in single game runs in any impactful way.

• The classic Full Trilogy categories, Any% and 315%, still exist. They are just now known as "Full Trilogy - No File Fusion, Any%" and "Full Trilogy - No File Fusion, 315%" respectively now. Otherwise, they are exactly the same as they were before. File Fusion categories for Full Trilogy now exist as well.

• Cross-Game now exists, and will encompass any categories that require jumping between games for the sake of completing one (or more) faster. At the current moment the only ones that exist are Crash 1 Any% and Crash 1 All Gems, but it is likely more will be added as we figure more out about File Fusion in general.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading all of this! It's been a crazy few days in the NST community, but everything is still intact from before this huge discovery, and I'm sure many will appreciate this explanation as to just what these new categories popping up are.

~Riko