New Spyro Youtooz 16in Weighted Plush

The new Youtooz Spyro the Dragon 16in weighted plush is now available for preorder.

 

https://youtooz.com/products/spyro-weighted-plush-16-inch

 

 

Spyro Reignited Trilogy - Coming to Xbox Game Pass Tomorrow

Xbox announced that the Spyro Reignited Trilogy will be released on the Xbox Game Pass tomorrow!

 https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/11/11/spyro-reignited-trilogy-xbox-game-pass/
 

"Everyone’s favorite purple dragon is bringing the heat (actual fire breathing dragon) tomorrow with the November 12 release of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy on Game Pass!

Remade from the ground up, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy features all three of the original games that started it all – Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, amazing for the original fans and new players alike.

Xbox players have been able to explore the Dragon Realms with Spyro since 2018 with the release of the Reignited Trilogy, and now we’re excited to invite our community to jump into these incredible adventures once again and relive the fun and nostalgia that only Spyro can bring.

Available on Game Pass Standard, Game Pass Ultimate, and PC Game Pass, for cloud, console and PC, it’s sure to ignite some serious fun. Let’s go save the Dragon Realms!"

Crash Bandicoot 5: A Cancelled Spyro Crossover

 

 

 

DidYouKnowGaming and Liam Robertson did a video talking about a cancelled Crash Bandicoot 5 game that would've taken place after Crash 4: It's About Time.

For Toys For Bob's concept of Crash Bandicoot 5, Uka Uka would be the main villain, enter an interdimensional portal underneath the Academy of Evil and use it to reach Spyro's universe. He would corrupt the dragon elders in a ritual and use them to cause chaos across the Dragon Realms and it would affect Crash's dimension as well.

Crash and Coco follow after Uka Uka into Spyro's dimension to stop him. They would eventually meet Spyro the Dragon and they join forces to restore the Dragon Elders and defeat Uka Uka. The dragon elders we save would grant Spyro and Crash abilities from their feathers, similar to how the sentient masks from the Crash Bandicoot games would grant Crash powers.

Spyro and Crash would've been the two main playable characters, with Coco and Nina Cortex being considered as well. There were ideas of old Spyro worlds being reimagined with Crash Bandicoot style gameplay, like Crash needing Spyro's help in platforming and Crash riding on Spyro's back or using him as a weapon. There were ideas of playing Spyro or Crash separately, or together on the same screen.

One of the ideas was to shed light on Uka Uka's backstory and the source of his rivalry with Aku Aku. 

 

 

New Youtooz Spyro & Sparx Figure and Pin Set

The new Spyro the Dragon Youtooz figure and pin set are now available for preorder!

https://youtooz.com/products/spyro-and-sparx

https://youtooz.com/products/spyro-pin-set 

 

Scrapped Spyro Game Concept by Vicarious Visions

Liam Robertson revealed that Vicarious Visions had an idea for a Spyro game that Activision turned down.

Vicarious Visions thought about making their own Spyro game for the franchise. It sounded similar to Spyro's Kingdom. The game was going to be a new take on Spyro, taking place many years after the original games with Spyro being an adult dragon. But instead of playing as Spyro, players control their own original dragon character with customizations and Spyro being their mentor in teaching them how to be dragon warriors.

The game would've taken place on a mysterious island that reemerged after years of being lost. The player would explore the island in open world fashion, doing missions for Spyro and other characters, and getting collectibles as the world evolved. The player could even team up with friends online to explore the island together. Gameplay was a mix between exploration and combat, on both the ground and in the air with erial dogfights against enemies. Vicarious Visions even made a prototype for the project and was testing out flight mechanics for the dragon before Activision shut it down to focus more of their other big hit video games.

 

Spyro & Sparx Youtooz Figure Teased

 Youtooz has teased an upcoming figure of Spyro and Sparx.

 

Skylanders Academy Season 1and 2 Q&A with Eric Rogers

I reached out to Eric Rogers and asked him a couple of questions about Season 1 and 2 of Skylanders Academy he worked on.


1. You mentioned that Spyro, Stealth Elf and Eruptor are in their early-teens in the show. Early teens usually range from 13-15.5 years old. And in Season 2, we see the trio as professors to the cadets. Was there a time-skip somewhere in Season 1 or 2? And is Cynder around Spyro's age?
Eric: Spyro, Stealth Elf, and Eruptor are more like older classmen to incoming freshmen to a high school. Cynder is close In age, but just brand new to the academy. So it's more like the kids who already go to the school showing the new kid the ropes.

2. During Thankstaking for the Memories episode, everyone but Spyro and Stealth Elf went home or elsewhere for the holiday. Did Cynder stay at the Academy? She couldn’t have gone home back in the Cadaverous Crypts for the holiday, especially after she chose to become a hero and leave her father Malefor.
Eric: No Cynder, in my head she left and spent the holiday with a friend. Kind of like Harry Potter spending a holiday with the Weasleys instead of going home!

3. Did Master Eon adopt Spyro out of guilt and redemption for having banished his family out of Skylands?
Eric: Yes!

4. Do Spyro, Stealth Elf, Eruptor, Jet-Vac and Pop Fizz have an official team name? Fans have called them "Team Spyro" based on Spyro's dialogue from the pilot episode, and Jet-Vac is said to be the leader of the team in the episode "Who's Your Daddy?"
Eric: Honestly they're just Skylanders, nothing specific with those chosen members. Jet-Vac is the defacto "leader" due to being the elder statesman of the group.

5. Was the Skylander Gill Grunt considered for Skylanders Academy? He's also one of the several fan favorites that you see getting a new toy figure every year for the Skylanders video games.
Eric:  I absolutely wanted Gill Grunt and had awesome plans for him. But budget constraints wouldn't allow him to be introduced on my watch.

6. Do the cadets have their own dorms at the Academy to go to afterschool and rest?
Eric: Yes!! The Academy is very much like Hogwarts.

7. Why do some locations from the games look different in Academy? The Skylanders Academy borrowed the same models from the Skylanders Trap Team video game, but the other locations look very generic, even Cloudcracker Prison.
Eric: Because of CGI. It wasn't simple or cheap to recreate locations that we wanted from the game. So corners get cut. 

Microsoft and Toys For Bob reached an agreement on unannounced project

Toys For Bob and Microsoft announced they have reached an agreement for their first independent game. This raises speculation on what kind of game they are developing. Spyro fans are speculating that this unknown game is a new Spyro title.

 

Crash Team Rumble - Final Content update available

Today the final update to Crash Team Rumble was released. In it is a Battlepass tier that includes over 200+ tier items that includes a lot of skins, emotes, backpacks, accessories, even a new skin for #Spyro, Ripto, and Elora.

 

 

 

Toys For Bob has gone Independent!

Toys For Bob, the game developer of some of the installments Skylanders and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Crash Team Rumble, has recently announced that they are going to be indie game developers from here on out after the layoffs.

Toys For Bob wrote:
"We’re thrilled to announce that Toys for Bob is spinning off as an independent game development studio!

Over the years, we've inspired love, joy, and laughter for the inner child in all gamers. We pioneered new IP and hardware technologies in Skylanders. We raised the bar for best-in-class remasters in Spyro Reignited Trilogy. We’ve taken Crash Bandicoot to innovative, critically acclaimed new heights.

With the same enthusiasm and passion, we believe that now is the time to take the studio and our future games to the next level. This opportunity allows us to return to our roots of being a small and nimble studio.

To make this news even more exciting, we’re exploring a possible partnership between our new studio and Microsoft. And while we’re in the early days of developing our next new game and a ways away from making any announcements, our team is excited to develop new stories, new characters, and new gameplay experiences.

Our friends at Activision and Microsoft have been extremely supportive of our new direction and we’re confident that we will continue to work closely together as part of our future.  
So, keep your horns on and your eyes out for more news. Thank you to our community of players for always supporting us through our journey. We can't wait to share updates on our new adventure as an indie studio!  

Talk to you soon!"

Crash Team Rumble - Final Game Update

Crash Team Rumble has announced in-game that March 4th will be the final content update and the game will remain live with a free battlepass tier that includes new items.

I enjoyed the effort and passion put into this game. Toys for Bob did the best they can, and I appreciate it.

 

Spyro found in early concept art of Skylanders: SuperChargers

Here are early concept art for Skylanders: SuperChargers by Stuart Ng. These include concepts of Spyro, Pop Fizz, Eruptor and Bash having their own SuperCharger vehicles. Pop Fizz and Eruptor would later become SuperChargers in the final game with their own different vehicles. 

 

Crash Team Rumble - Summer Forest Arena Map Screenshots

The Crash Bandicoot social media pages released new screenshots of the Summer Forest map, which was released today in Crash Team Rumble.

 

Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon had an outdated game engine, a broken render and no art director

A new art upload from one of the environmental artists who worked on The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon with Etranges Libellules revealed new details behind the development of the game, such as the bloom and the change in character texture maps. Not only did the console game had an outdated game engine and a broken game render, it also had no art director.

This explains so much, why Cynder's scale colors were changed from black to dark purple, to why the Chronicler's colors were changed from gray to bright blue. Even the enemies had to have their texture map colors changed!

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WBokoG 

Yannick Gombart wrote: 
"I won't talk much about Spyro because for me it's one of the worst productions I've worked on.
Our engine was too old to correctly display normal maps.
It was decided to boost glossiness and had an orange bloom. The whole game render looked oily and ugly"

"On most ELB productions, we didn't have an artistic director and decisions were made by the studio manager.
These choices were decisive in the final rendering of the game.
It was difficult to bring subtlety to the textures since the render was broken."

Original coloration of the Wyvern, which was made red in the final game to stand out in the game's bright bloom

 

Crash Team Rumble - Spyro Early Access starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow on Thursday, Spyro the Dragon will permanently be added to the Crash Team Rumble roster! Players will be able to unlock him by earning Relic Assist badges.  

 

Crash Team Rumble - Summer Forest Map Coming this Thursday

Summer Forest is coming to Crash Team Rumble this Thursday! Be ready!

 

Crash Team Rumble - Elora Early Access

1 more day until Elora is available for Early Access in Crash Team Rumble!