Developer Toys for Bob has confirmed that players will be able to experience full free-flight in Spyro: A Realm Beyond. Until now, most Spyro the Dragon games have only allowed players to glide and hover in midair briefly, while some have let players take to the skies more freely but only for a limited time during challenge missions. Spyro: A Realm Beyond is breaking those franchise traditions.
After months of speculation, and almost a decade after the franchise’s last release, Spyro: A Realm Beyond was finally announced during the June 7 Xbox Games Showcase. Though it was arguably one of the biggest surprises of the event, Spyro: A Realm Beyond‘s reveal was just one of many to come out of the Xbox Games Showcase, with games like Gears of War: E-Day, Halo: Campaign Evolved, Fable, and Persona 6 all showing up in some capacity.
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Spyro: A Realm Beyond Will Let Players Experience “The Freedom of True Dragon Flight”
Immediately following Spyro: A Realm Beyond‘s reveal during the June 7 Xbox Games Showcase, an interview with Toys for Bob’s Studio Head, Paul Yan, was posted to Xbox Wire. While the entire interview is filled with interesting tidbits and fun teases about the next mainline Spyro the Dragon game, by far one of the most intriguing sections is when Yan directly confirms a feature that Spyro fans have been asking for since the series’ debut in 1998, simply stating, “In Spyro: A Realm Beyond, Spyro will experience the freedom of true dragon flight.”
What’s That Weapon?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
Right at the end of Spyro: A Realm Beyond‘s reveal trailer, fans get a brief glimpse of this free-flight in action. Spyro soars through the air, flapping his wings to increase his speed and diving underneath an archway. As he emerges from the other side of the structure, an auto-lock-on target appears on-screen and latches onto a small bundle of sticks. Spyro shoots a fireball, turning the wooden mound into a campfire that produces a column of smoke, which Spyro then uses to get a vertical boost. The trailer ends with Spyro blasting a foe out of the sky, and a splash screen presents the tagline, “Take Flight Spring 2027.”
In the Xbox Wire interview, Paul Yan sheds a bit of light on the decision to finally include this long-requested feature in the next Spyro game. Yan mentions that previous games have only let Spyro glide in most missions and only enter full flight in time trials, and says that he’s “always wondered what it would be like if these two experiences could somehow be collapsed into Spyro’s core ability kit.” Yan states that that question is “the heart of the design ambition for Spyro: A Realm Beyond,” and that full free-flight is the “right evolution for Spyro.”
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
Yan also mentions that flight is “such a significant addition to the game” that the team has “built a whole world around that promise,” referencing the colorful but yet-unnamed setting that was shown during Spyro: A Realm Beyond‘s announcement trailer. In the same interview, Yan also confirms that Tom Kenny is returning to voice Spyro. Kenny previously voiced the iconic gaming mascot in the original versions of Spyro: Ripto’s Rage and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, as well as in the 2018 Spyro: Reignited Trilogy.
- Released
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2027
- Number of Players
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Single-player
