It is now possible to play the original Crash Team Racing online with up to 8 players (situated anywhere in the world), all thanks to the efforts of a talented collection of modders and testers.
The news comes just one month after the same group worked together to release a brilliant new 60FPS & widescreen mod for Crash Team Racing, which was similarly built using an in-development rewrite of the PS1 game's source code.
The new online mod carries over all the improvements from the previous release, but also introduces dedicated servers for online play (based in Europe, the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia), as well as options for private lobbies via LAN, and local host connections.
All tracks and characters are also available by default, meaning that you can race wherever you'd like and with whoever you want without having to go through the effort of unlocking everything all over again.
The launch trailer for the mod was released earlier this month on June 1st on the preservationist/YouTuber Darkaiser's channel, who refers to the mod as "the #1 longest-running mod in the entire history of CTR modding" and "the original [...] inspiration for the decompile".
As Darkaiser claims in the video description, "This is just the initial public release" so more updates and features are planned for the future.
If you want to play, you'll need to acquire your own copy of the game and the PlayStation emulator Duckstation, before joining the OnlineCTR Discord. This is where you'll be able to grab the patch, as well as organize races, and report any of the issues that you find.