After killing it with Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Toys for Bob is now making an original Spyro game called Spyro: A Realm Beyond coming to Xbox Series X & S, PS5, Switch 2, and Steam in Spring 2027.
Description per the official Youtube channel:
When Spyro finds himself stranded, his journey to discover a way home is interrupted by the arrival of a vicious invading force known as the Scavs. Spyro must make new allies and rise to protect this realm before it’s changed forever. Feel the freedom of flight as you soar above vibrant landscapes, weave between treetops, dive off massive landmarks and wing your way through this new realm in Spyro’s boldest evolution yet. Carve your path through the skies and chain together dives, climbs and tight turns as you navigate the world your way. Crafted by Toys For Bob, this is a new evolution of Spyro, built to send the purple dragon soaring higher than ever before.
Feel the freedom of flight as you soar above vibrant landscapes, weave between treetops, dive off massive landmarks and wing your way through this new realm in Spyro™ ’s boldest evolution yet.
Carve your path through the skies and chain together dives, climbs and tight turns as you navigate the world your way.
Crafted by Toys For Bob, this is a new evolution of Spyro™, built to send the purple dragon soaring higher than ever.
Gosh... the about this game on steam is so cool sounding
I'm not sure what to think without more information. On the one hand it looks great. On the other hand — is it still even a platformer or is it just a flying game?
“We’re trying to amplify what it means to be a dragon, and that means leaning into dragon flight,” explained Lou Studdert, associate creative director for Spyro: A Realm Beyond at Toys for Bob.
He clarified that in Spyro: A Realm Beyond, you’ll be able to transition from ground to air at a moment’s notice. It’s simply “press a button” whenever you’d like, and it’s not restricted to certain areas or levels. This doesn’t mean, however, that you’ll be able to completely bypass the world around you to get to those gems and possible secrets.
“One of the things we’re showing off in the gameplay portion [of the trailer] is, we want you interacting with the environment,” Studdert said. “We want you diving down to catch speed, using your flame breath to ignite campfires to get lift before flapping your wings to sustain movement.”
This innate flight mechanic was Toys for Bob’s first focus of prototyping, and it drove how the studio created the game as a whole.
“Some of the things that fans really enjoy about Spyro is just the movement,” said Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan. “It’s this Zen-like flow through the world, a sense of discovery and chaining your charge through the speed pads, collecting your gems. And so flight seems like a natural way to take that to the next level, literally.”
Seems more like a lot of fly-focused, but it's like... the movement itself? Like using it to move instead of the jumps and stuff. Which can be very neat, but definitely will be different than regular platformer I think.
“We’re trying to amplify what it means to be a dragon, and that means leaning into dragon flight,” explained Lou Studdert, associate creative director for Spyro: A Realm Beyond at Toys for Bob.
He clarified that in Spyro: A Realm Beyond, you’ll be able to transition from ground to air at a moment’s notice. It’s simply “press a button” whenever you’d like, and it’s not restricted to certain areas or levels. This doesn’t mean, however, that you’ll be able to completely bypass the world around you to get to those gems and possible secrets.
“One of the things we’re showing off in the gameplay portion [of the trailer] is, we want you interacting with the environment,” Studdert said. “We want you diving down to catch speed, using your flame breath to ignite campfires to get lift before flapping your wings to sustain movement.”
This innate flight mechanic was Toys for Bob’s first focus of prototyping, and it drove how the studio created the game as a whole.
“Some of the things that fans really enjoy about Spyro is just the movement,” said Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan. “It’s this Zen-like flow through the world, a sense of discovery and chaining your charge through the speed pads, collecting your gems. And so flight seems like a natural way to take that to the next level, literally.”
Seems more like a lot of fly-focused, but it's like... the movement itself? Like using it to move instead of the jumps and stuff. Which can be very neat, but definitely will be different than regular platformer I think.
Veeeery interesting direction they're taking this game. I was about to say that they'd have to be careful with flight because it could break the platforming and they'd want to limit it in some way (which is why the original trilogy did), but it seems like they're leaning into a more momentum based approach. This could be an interesting way of solving that problem, if you have to use that momentum and environmental interaction to sustain it, but they still have to be very careful about the execution. Toys for Bob is competent enough that it seems achievable for them, but I don't think we should be too overconfident this will be good. We'll just have to wait and see if they can pull it off.
Graphics are a bit underwhelming so far, but they are using the same Reignited artstyle so I guess the end-product will look good. Looks like you can now fly anywhere. Wouldn't surprise me if its open-world now, or at the very least very big Mario odyssey/DK bananza style levels (instead of the smaller levels from past entries). I can see many people hating that, but I am looking forward to it!
Speaking of the villain: So its a new villain, but when I saw the small guy with the staff I immediately thought Ripto!
@Henmii Yeah, it does look very open. I suspect it's more open zone like Mario Odyssey or Sonic Frontiers, not full open world. That would fit Spyro pretty well since they always seem to have hub worlds that aren't terribly distinct from the full levels, going open zone wouldn't be all that different.
I also suspect, given the developers saying momentum based full flight is a major gameplay mechanic, we may see more Speedway levels. Really it's kind of like they made the Speedways into a full main gameplay mechanic, so it would be pretty natural for them to lean on them to create smaller challenge levels within the open zone.
@Henmii I almost thought it was Red the evil dragon from A Hero's Tail. Considering the dark crystals...kinda had me going there for a moment. Never got a chance to play A Hero's Tail though. Might get it on GameCube one day.
I sell my famous Chesapeake Tupperware.
I ACCEPT NO DEBIT CARDS!
DO YOU HEAR ME!?!
Honestly I don’t think they could have made the gameplay look any more boring in the trailer if they tried. Glad they at least showed something…but a few seconds of flying doesn’t really do it for me tbh.
Cautiously optimistic about this one. The original trilogy remain some of my favourite 3D platformers of all time, but I’ve been burned by Spyro in the past so let’s see how this goes.
There seems to be a decent amount of aversion to the idea of Spyro freely flying which brings to mind the same aversion there was to DK's punching in Bananza. Personally, I'm interested in the idea. Spyro's gameplay was great but no different from most other platformers - lacked a strong mechanical identity. Putting more emphasis on his ability to fly feels like a good start to giving him one.
Of course, we only have like 7 seconds to go on, so we'll have to wait and see.
@N00BiSH I wouldn't quite say I'm averse to free flying, but I am cautiously optimistic about the idea. It's an extremely risky mechanic that can easily go wrong if the execution isn't perfect, flying can trivialize gameplay (and especially platforming, which is a valid complaint I've noticed about Bananza as much I liked it, as fun as it is to explore and experiment with the terrain, it leaves much to be desired in terms of actual platforming) so the design and mechanics need to be extremely well balanced to make it fun. Toys for Bob is a quality developer, but this strikes me as an idea that even the greatest of developers can easily screw up, so I'm reasonably optimistic, but not super confident. The game will just need to prove itself, and we won't know for sure until release.
Forums
Topic: Spyro: A Realm Beyond
Nintendo Switch 2 is finally here, check out our guide: Nintendo Switch 2 Guide: Ultimate Resource.
Posts 1 to 13 of 13
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic