Jak II was first released in North America on October 14, 2003, for the PlayStation 2. A flash game was published online in 2001 to promote The Precursor Legacy. However, the duo find Acheron corrupted by Dark Eco, choosing to use the elusive Light Eco to defeat him and save the world at the cost of Daxter remaining in his ottsel form. In a quest to return Daxter to human form, he and Jak set out to find the Dark Eco sage Gol Acheron. After Daxter falls into a Dark Eco silo at the forbidden Misty Island, he is transformed from a human into an ottsel, a fictional hybrid of an otter and weasel. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was first released in North America on December 3, 2001, for the PlayStation 2. The series has also produced various forms of extended media and merchandise, and has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. In December that year, Jak II, Jak 3 and Jak X: Combat Racing were released. The original three Jak and Daxter games, along with Jak X: Combat Racing, were released for the PlayStation 4 as Jak and Daxter Bundle in August 2017, alongside the release of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. The first three games in the series were re-released on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita as part of the remastered Jak and Daxter Collection that includes support for the PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Suite. The games are inspired by Eastern and Western culture, a decision made among the team members at Naughty Dog and related stakeholders while developing the first title. The series is set in a fictional universe that incorporates science fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, and mystical elements, while centering on the eponymous characters as they try to uncover the secrets of their world, and unravel the mysteries left behind by an ancient race called the Precursors.
The games are story-based platformers that feature a mixture of action, racing and puzzle solving. The first game, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, released on December 3, 2001, was one of the earliest titles for the PlayStation 2, and is regarded as a defining franchise for the console. The series was developed by Naughty Dog with a number of installments being outsourced to Ready at Dawn and High Impact Games. Jak and Daxter is a video game franchise created by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment.