Slated for release within the first half of 2027, Spyro: A Realm Beyond will be the first new title for the series in 19 years.
Upon the excitement I felt last month when learning that there would indeed be a long-awaited new Spyro game, I decided it was the perfect time to once again revisit Spyro Reignited Trilogy, reliving some of my favorite childhood games in its fully remastered glory.
The games are as incredible now as they were to me when I first played them in the early-to-mid 2000’s, emphasizing a perfect mix of exploration, platforming and distinct abilities that were not typical to other platformers on the market.
After the original trilogy on the PlayStation, the series slowly began to take a different direction, one that was met with much more trepidation from the series’ fanbase. While Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly stayed mostly faithful to the elements seen in the first three games, the title was critically panned for its litany of bugs and framerate issues along with its short storyline and lack of distinct features.
Though some fans did view Spyro: A Hero’s Tail as a bit of a return to form while introducing a few new characteristics, the series took on an entirely new direction with The Legend of Spyro trilogy – with three games that took on more of an action-adventure format with some role-playing elements, marking a departure from the platformers that had defined the series.
While The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon from 2008 remains the series’ most recent installment, the trailer for A Realm Beyond implies that fans will have a solid dose of what made them fall in love with Spyro games in the first place.
Although there’s only so much one can infer from a 72-second trailer, there’s more than enough to open up players’ imagination – with shots of a sprawling world featuring a variety of landscapes while teasing the arrival of “A New Evil.”
Though I don’t want to draw out the Crash-Spyro relationship anymore than I already have, the former series does offer a solid blueprint of how a long-awaited installment such as A Realm Beyond can be a smashing success.
The Crash Bandicoot series returned in full form in the fall of 2020 with Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time – with the title serving as a nod to the game serving as the much-anticipated sequel to 1998’s Warped while also acknowledging the central role that time plays to the game’s plot.
It’s About Time in many ways was the perfect combination of staying faithful to the roots of a series while providing hordes of additional content and unique features to still make the game feel fresh and up-to-date.
While I certainly hope that A Realm Beyond shares the intense difficulty of its Crash counterpart, that does remain one aspect that could at least be altered a bit when compared to the rest of the Spyro series.
Although a large (and deserved) appeal of the original Spyro trilogy is its tranquil nature and relatively low difficulty, it would be refreshing to see some aspect of A Realm Beyond that is truly challenging.
Though this is a delicate balance to strike, it was perhaps perfectly executed in games like Crash Bandicoot: Warped and Crash Team Racing, which have storylines that are not too difficult to clear while also including intense challenges for completionist players who hope to collect everything there is to within a game.
A Realm Beyond has several ways and opportunities to make this happen, although one of them wouldn’t even necessarily involve making the game itself harder – rather the series can simply take advantage of where modern game development is to provide a entirely new challenge in terms of exploration.
Within the Spyro trilogy, one inescapable commonality is the connectivity of a homeworld to other levels via portals – a consistent feature that defined the trilogy and also continued on afterwards to Enter the Dragonfly as well.
Yet with exploration and discovery being aspects that have always been treasured and rewarded by the series in the past, A Realm Beyond can help define its title by bringing about one noticeable departure from the trilogy – the eradication of portals in favor of one cohesive, connected world that sees levels and homeworlds blend into one another in a harmonious landscape.
Not only does this inherently create a new challenge by making gem collecting a much taller task, it can also provide new opportunities for Spyro’s movement. After all, the original game’s level design was prized for showcasing large levels that Spyro is able to navigate thanks to his flying ability.
With perhaps a bit more flexibility in Spyro’s ability to fly, players could potentially traverse incredibly long distances while gliding in a matter that could be reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – as Spyro serves as the ideal mascot to find his way around a seemingly limitless world.
Just this alone would help provide an entirely new dimension to the series that has yet to exist – one that was probably possible around the 2018 release of Reignited Trilogy, but not fully realized yet within a series eager to capitalize on the rampant video game nostalgia of the time.
Though this element of exploration would act as both a departure from series norms and a logical advancement of the character, there are other ways that I hope A Realm Beyond remains faithful to the original trilogy while providing a novel experience that can get a younger generation into Spyro.
While players were teased about the arrival of “a new evil,” I would think that still leaves the door open to some familiar enemies. The sight of rhynocs would be oddly comforting to longtime players, with the opportunity to implement past villains in new roles – something the Crash Bandicoot series has done at length by making antagonists in some games playable against a different enemy in others.
The Spyro series has ample opportunity to provide a twist in this regard, perhaps finding new roles for bad guys of yesteryear such as Gnasty Gnorc, Ripto and the Sorceress.
Ultimately, this feels like a game that would have to have so much wrong with it to be a complete flop with loyal fans of the series – which has happened before with Enter the Dragonfly! Yet above all else, after a 19-year hiatus, this game simply needs to show what the series is capable of with the benefit of today’s game development.
It’s why above all else, I want to see exploration on an entirely new scale here – a world that feels specifically crafted for this iteration of Spyro, much like the levels in the original trilogy were.
If that’s executed well, then this game will feel like a novel experience no matter what.
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