FiGGYZ, a pixel-art collectible divsion of First 4 Figures, has announced in a recent livestream on Crash Bandicoot of their upcoming Spyro the Dragon merchandise in the form of a limited edition Collector's Box Set. The set comes with four FiGGYZ (pixel-art cards), four holo plates, a numbered coin.
Its set price is $59.99 and preorders open on November 6th.
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| Spyro the Dragon FiGGYZ Collector's Box Set |
Bundragoness has recently announced that her Spyro fangame, Spyro: Crisis in Chronolia, has been cancelled. She explained that this was due to lack of motivation and to avoid potential copyright issues with Activision after the announcement of Spyro: A Realm Beyond. She is also disallowing others from finishing the fangame for her.
In the first Spyro the Dragon installment of the original trilogy and its Reignited remake, a couple of Peace Keeper dragons (Gunnar, Ivor, and Ragnar) mention to Spyro that they have anticipated Spyro's potential as he ventured through the Dragon Worlds to rescue the dragons, reclaim their treasure and defeat Gnasty Gnorc and his minions.
The events of Spyro 1, and possibly Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Year of the Dragon, could be what finally pushed Spyro into being what these elder dragons saw in him. In the Spyro games after the original trilogy, this was never brought up again, and we never find out what potential nor destiny these elder dragons were speaking of.
Toys For Bob mentioned that the mysterious new villain of the upcoming game, Spyro: A Realm Beyond, will challenge Spyro’s abilities and push him to new emotional depths that will see Spyro grow as a hero. Perhaps in A Realm Beyond, we might see the answer to what the elder dragons say Spyro is ready for?
Today marks 28 years since Spyro first appeared on the PlayStation. He's been on a long journey, been through reboots and remade back with his original roots. On the horizon, a new original game is coming out in Spring 2027.
To celebrate Spyro's 28th birthday, Spyro fans in California were sent mini burn away cakes that burn away to reveal special images on the cake of Spyro and other critters that will appear in A Realm Beyond.
Others far from California were sent images that were featured on said cake.
The official Spyro the Dragon social media pages released an image hinting at a surprise for Spyro's birthday on the 9th of September.
Spyro the Dragon: Spyro Community Day? More like Spyro Community WEEK! Make sure to tune in on my birthday for an extra sweet surprise! 🥳
For Spyro Community Day 2026, Dessert Monkey released his Spyro fan film, Special Delivery. A few months ago, I did an interview with Dessert on his fan project and what we might expect.
Today marks the release of Spyro the Dragon in the game, Fortnite. For the game's 42nd season, Chapter 7 Season 4, he is released alongside Crash Bandicoot, who is an alternate character outfit for the game. Spyro can be purchased by himself at 1,500 V-Bucks in the Items Shop. Unlike many of his other appearances in game crossovers, Spyro isn't a playable character in Fortnite; instead, he's a Sidekick character. Sidekicks only follow the player around during matches, interact with the world around them and can be seen by the player and their teammates.
Youtooz Skylanders Gill Grunt, Jet-Vac, Thumpback and Dark Spyro vinyl figures are now available for preorder until September 25th 12pm PST.
Gill Grunt had a Youtooz plushie available for preorder last year and consumers received their copies. Now a vinyl figure version is open for preorder.
Dark Spyro is an Entertainment Earth exclusive, so you have to preorder him from their site. He is limited to 750 pieces, so get him before he's gone!
Fortnite releases a new teaser for the Crash Bandicoot skin and the Spyro sidekick character that will be released soon in the game. For Spyro's segments, we are given a look at returning powerup skins from the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and a music track.
Poison (which is one of the powerups used during Ripto's boss battle in Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!) is teased as one of the color skins for Spyro. In the new trailer below, Superfreeze and Superflame are confirmed to be alternate colors.
Unfinished concept art of Fortnite was leaked with Spyro the Dragon, Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot amongst the cast of game characters. Said art has now been confirmed real, with the art now being more finished, and the Fortnite social media announcing with a Chapter 7: Season 4 Override trailer that Spyro, Crash, Sonic, Mega Man, Sora, Joker, Street Fighter, and many others officially coming to the game.
Spyro's A Realm Beyond design is used for Fortnite to go along with his upcoming game releasing in Spring 2027.
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| Finalized poster |
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| Leaked WIP version (AI generated by dev team) |
Sydsogood, also known as Sydnee Goodman, has posted a video overview on the Spyro franchise. During the subject of Spyro's time under Toys For Bob's watch, Lou Studdert and Paul Yan makes an appearance, adding their input on the Skylanders franchise and later their involvement in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. They also spoke out their time after Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and their split from Activision that lead to them developing Spyro: A Realm Beyond.
A fanmade PC port for Spyro 1 has been released! An iso file of the game is required to play it. This project reconstructs the original Spyro 1 data by converting its original code into a native PC port while keeping the gameplay untouched. The port upgrades the original visuals with high framerates up to 120 fps, adds draw distance, includes high definition resolution to 1080p, wider screen aspect options, clear textures, and will support mods in the future. There's even an optional toggle for the PSX style.
For those who have iso files of Spyro 1, this project will allow fans to play the game without emulator issues and experience the enhancements offered.
Redandblack64 released another new update on their fan PlayStation 1 remake of Spyro: Season of Ice. For the Autumn Fairy Home, it adds Moneybags who hints at the flammable pumpkins and the fairy they'll unlock when all of them are lit. The Mermaid Coast has also has some tweaks, such the lighthouse positions and an additional mission of taking out all Rhynocs in the realm to collect a frozen fairy.
Another new addition to the game update is the level Lava Prairie, a prehistoric realm surrounded by lava. The cavemen are based on the Bonebuilders from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, and we see the similarities more closely with the cavemen 3D models. The realm itself is heavily based on its core counterpart, from the cave paintings and the layout. There are currently two hostile prehistoric Rhynocs, a green one with a club and a yellow one that breathes fireballs. There are also a few additions to collecting gems, such as the floating vases and the seasonal snowglobes from the Spyro fangame, Crisis in Chronolia.
Youtooz has released their promotional photos of their upcoming Skylanders Chop Chop and Drobot plushies. Previously the plushies had incorrect features that the original designs didn't have, like Chop Chop's helmet angled backwards and Drobot's snout pushed in. Fans were quick to point them out and Youtooz made the decision to delay the Drobot and Chop Chop plushies until their designs are fixed.
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| Old version |
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| Revised version |
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| Old version |
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| Revised version |
Kinda Funny Games did an interview with Toys For Bob's Lou Studdert and Paul Yan on Spyro: A Realm Beyond.
Vision for Spyro
- The new Spyro is the team's dream project.
- The character is based on the original trilogy: tone, personality, and voice; not a reboot like Legend of Spyro.
- The game is an evolution of the franchise, exploring new locations and expanding the narrative.
- Every Spyro game should have charm, memorable characters, fluid movement, and exploration.
- Gems remain a very important part of the experience.
- They are leaning heavily into the fantasy of being a dragon.
Exploration & Flight
- Players can explore both on the ground and in the air—the choice is theirs.
- Dragon flight is a core addition to Spyro's movement kit.
- Flight was the cornerstone of the project from the beginning, with the world designed around it.
- Flying builds upon the fluid controls and animations from Spyro Reignited Trilogy and adds new ways to explore rather than replacing ground movement.
- Levels feature significantly more verticality and layered environments to support flight.
- The goal is for players to see distant locations and think, "How do I get there?" by combining abilities and environmental interactions.
- They don't want the game to feel like a flight simulator.
Flight mechanics
- Flight is fully active rather than automatic.
- Players must flap Spyro's wings to maintain speed and momentum.
- Diving increases speed.
- Flame breath can ignite campfires to create lift.
- Sky rings provide speed boosts.
- The challenge comes from chaining these mechanics together to stay airborne.
- Spyro's flame breath has greater range while flying, functioning more like fireballs, whereas on the ground it behaves more like a flamethrower.
Design Philosophy
- Spyro is about zen-like, fluid movement through beautiful worlds.
- This is fundamentally different from Crash's precision platforming.
- The studio loves creating colorful characters with exceptional controls.
- There were few games to draw inspiration from for this type of flight system, so much of it required pioneering new ideas.
Why It's Not "Spyro 4"
- Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time continued the original trilogy directly because later entries had drifted away from the original gameplay.
- Spyro is intentionally not numbered to make it welcoming for newcomers.
- It contains references for longtime fans but is designed as a fresh experience anyone can start with.
Relationship to Skylanders
- Nothing carries over from Skylanders besides lessons the team learned about humor.
- The two series exist in completely separate universes.
Development
- Development has been underway for a little over two years.
- The team feels confident about a Spring 2027 release.
- Their preferred development cycle is around 2–3 years.
- They describe themselves as a nimble, efficient studio with strong scope management.
- There were moments where the project became over-scoped, requiring difficult cuts to stay on budget and schedule.
Toys for Bob & Independence
- The team originally wanted to work on Spyro but was assigned to Crash Bandicoot 4.
- They later pitched a new Spyro game to Xbox alongside their proposal to become an independent studio.
- Transitioning to independence was smooth, although establishing the new company required significant work.
- They had a strong relationship with Activision, but the pandemic changed priorities.
- The studio was required to support projects like Warzone and Overwatch 2.
- Toys for Bob eventually split into multiple teams and felt they were moving away from the types of games they loved making.
- After Microsoft's acquisition of Activision, they sought independence to focus on those games again.
- Xbox leadership supported this decision.
- The studio operates fully remotely, having shipped Crash Bandicoot 4, Crash Team Rumble, and their support work on Warzone remotely.
Choosing Spyro
- The team has many original ideas.
- Spyro was chosen because it made the strongest business case, particularly due to its sales history.
- They prefer working with established characters because timeless franchises come with passionate existing audiences.
Crash Team Rumble
- Crash Team Rumble was not created because of the live-service trend.
- The concept was prototyped before Crash Bandicoot 4.
- The goal was to make a Crash spinoff that still felt like Crash rather than another racing game.
The Future of 3D Platformers
- They believe 3D platformers are experiencing a resurgence.
- Examples mentioned include Astro Bot and the Rayman remake.
- Spyro and Crash have very different gameplay philosophies, making another crossover game difficult.
- The team are huge fans of Banjo-Kazooie and would love to work on the series if given the opportunity, describing those games as timeless.
In an interview with The Independent, Stewart Copeland confirms that he is not working on Spyro: A Realm Beyond.
“It happens that way,” he said, “It's a new generation. They want a new generation of sound and everything… they’ve got to modernise it. No harm, no foul.”
However, the news sparked backlash from the Spyro fanbase who are big fans of Stewart Copeland and were hoping he would return to compose the soundtrack for A Realm Beyond. Some believe with Stewart not composing for the game, it is doomed to fail, or lost value, with others declaring they won't preorder the game.
Will Toys For Bob respond, or will they ignore the backlash and continue on with their own composer chosen for A Realm Beyond in their push to not cater too much to nostalgia?
A Spyro fan film, Special Delivery, is a project currently in development by Dessert Monkey, who plans to release the movie later in 2026. This is the first I've heard of the fan film, and after watching animation tests, the first few trailers and the latest one, I became interested in this project and reached out to Dessert Monkey.
In the announcement trailer for Spyro: A Realm Beyond, we are given a glimpse of the villain who will be featured in the new game. We could only see his clawed hands, his cloak, horns, and his menacing glowing staff. Fans are currently speculating about the identity of this new antagonist.
Spyro: A Realm Beyond has garnered worldwide positive reception upon its announcement, with fans excited about the return of our heroic purple hero. The official trailer for Beyond has reached over 1 million views more than the "All Scaled Up" reveal trailer for the Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
In an interview with Gamesrader, Toys For Bob CEO, Paul Yan, stated that he's proud of the development team who have been "paying attention and listening to the community."
He sees that A Realm Beyond could have fallen into two extremes:
"If you stick too much to nostalgia, then you basically just rehash, and it's like, 'why did we do that?'" he suggests, saying that rehashing things would mean "there's no future that kind of gets out there."
Meanwhile, "on the other extreme, you innovate too much, and all of a sudden you don't even recognize what the character is and what the series is." With that in mind, Yan says, "that tension is so real" when it came to making A Realm Beyond.
After all, he continues, "our goal is that we want Spyro to live on for a long time. We want not just one new game, but many new games. We hope that this is the first of many. So we're going to have to take some risks. We're going to have to move into new territory, and our goal is to make sure that that evolution is always speaking to something that is authentic and reverential to building on the foundation of what is truly Spyro, and then we'll take some leaps." This will be "uncomfortable," he adds, "but we wanna go there."
Personally I'm okay with getting a new game every couple of years if love and effort is put into them. We don't want Spyro to be in the same situation as the Skylanders franchise: Yearly releases that will gradually milk the franchise to death.
After many many months of speculations, false alarms, bouts of hopes, we are finally shown the next installment in the Spyro the Dragon franchise, a new original game: Spyro: A Realm Beyond.
The Pop Fizz Youtooz plush is now available for preorder until June 30th. But Youtooz has announced they will be delaying preorders for the Drobot and Chop Chop plushies in order to make some edits to them after Skylanders fan feedback regarding the designs for the plushies.
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| Chop Chop Youtooz plush with his helmet angled backwards |
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| Chop Chop's original design with his helmet angled forwards |
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| Drobot Youtooz plush with his snout pushed in |
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| Drobot's original design with a prominent snout |
Youtooz announces their next line of merchandise plushies for the Skylanders franchise: Drobot, Pop Fizz and Chop Chop. Each plush is 9in tall and will cost $29.99. They will be released on June 2nd.
https://youtooz.com/search?q=Skylanders
When the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, fans were disappointed that the baby dragons from the Spyro: Year of the Dragon installment weren't given the same treatment as the adult dragons who were each given individual redesigns for Spyro 1.
Shortly after the release of the Reignited Trilogy, Spyro fan Nicooriia began doing a fan series on her take on the baby dragons from Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The challenge lasted about 3 years, and years later I decided to reach out to Nicooriia to ask some questions about her series.
On Reddit, a user named MomokaRage posted on Twitter that their boyfriend discovered the E3 2000 Spyro 3 promotional statue in an abandoned building in Saint Helens, Oregon. The statue’s eyes are cracked, his purple scales faded over the years and his wings are missing.
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| Spyro 3 E3 2000 statue image provided by Craig Stitt |
In the original Spyro trilogy, the dragon family Spyro belonged to was speculation amongst the fan community as Insomniac Games never added any implications apart from Spyro mostly being found in the Artisans world at the start of each game. He has traits that would fit a Peace Keeper, often itching for a fight, but his home is in the Artisans world where the dragons are peaceful.
In the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, both Toys For Bob and Insomniac Games envision Spyro as an Artisans dragon. In the game's credits, we see artwork by Devon Cady-Lee of Spyro working with various elder Artisan dragons in finding his artistic voice. From building, sculpting, cooking, baking, music composing, clock making and writing. Some of which Spyro takes joy in, or accidentally messes up.
Ripple Junction has released new Spyro merchandise a couple of months ago back in January 2026.
Spyro fan Danizoar recently released a new mod for the PC port of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy where fans can play as a teenage version of Reignited Spyro. This teenage Spyro features lanky body proportions, bigger wingspan and body frame, much like Dawn of the Dragon Spyro. Some of the design features are based on Nicholas Kole's Reignited adult Spyro design from 2018, where Spyro is a balloonist as his profession. The mod also comes with the optional yellow colored spines for classic Spyro fans.
Humorously to me, since adult dragons in the OG/Reignited universe are bipedal, it gives off a vibe of “Spyro, you’re too old now to be running on all fours all the time” if an adult dragons scolds a teenage Spyro. Which reminds me of something while playing through this mod. Due to Teen Spyro being bigger, the game camera that was designed for young, smaller Spyro has it focused on Teen Spyro's body at times, and the teen model itself nearly reaching the top of the screen with players barely seeing his face. Animations aren't correctly retargeted, which makes the mod a little janky.
Danizoar had difficulties working on the mod due to Unreal Engine not agreeing with the inclusion of the teen Spyro model. But it worked out in the end in spite of lingering issues. Overall, it is a nice mod to look into and experience what a teenage Spyro would look like in a original/Reignited-based Spyro game to allow fans to play as an older Spyro.
An existing mod by Danizoar also features original young Spyro wearing a balloonist scarf and gloves.
