The 2020s are full of old game franchises returning, and now that includes Spyro the Dragon.
During Sunday’s Xbox showcase, developer Toys for Bob announced Spyro: A Realm Reyond. Plot-wise, the game will see the lil dragon stranded in a new realm. (Hence the title.) It’s also under threat of an invading force called the Scavs, so it falls to him to stop them and their leader while making new friends and finding his way home. At time of writing, it’s unclear who the big bad is, and whether we’ll see any returning faces—particularly Sparx, his longtime buddy that’s also been an in-game health bar.
Realm Beyond’s biggest feature is Spyro’s ability to fully fly. As a tiny dragon, he could only glide and hover in the previous games, with the occasional boost from gateways in specific levels. Here, he’s got bigger wings and he can fly to his heart’s content at the push of a button. Lou Studdert, Toys for Bob’s associate creative director, told IGN this was the studio’s first focus in the prototype phase, and that it’ll “amplify what it means to be a dragon.”
Open flight was a “natural” extension of previous entries imbuing a sense of discovery and “zen-like flow.” But this doesn’t mean levels are now a cakewalk, as Spyro will have to dive down to increase flight speed or ignite campfires so the wind helps his movement.
For a while, it seemed unlikely that a new Spyro game would happen Toys for Bob was relegated to Call of Duty support after a number of Crash Bandicoot spinoffs, dashing hopes that it’d make good on a tease in the Crash 4 art book. Now independent, the studio is building off a framework established with the remakes of the original Spyro games. Realm Beyond’s setup isn’t that dissimilar from Spyro 2, and Tom Kenny’s voicing Spyro again after he first joined the series with the second entry.
Implicit or not, A Realm Beyond is basically Spyro 4, and we can’t wait for it to hit PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X|S in spring 2027.
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