Spyro: A Realm Beyond, the return we had given up on, and for once it is not a remake

We can still see ourselves playing it on our PlayStation 1, the little purple dragon who breathes fire and glides over pastel worlds. So naturally, reading Spyro: A Realm Beyond, we first got that feeling of déjà vu, that faint sigh of a 2026 drowning under remakes. Except here, surprise: it is not one. And that changes everything.

The context

First misunderstanding to clear up, because we like the truth: Spyro: A Realm Beyond is not a remake, it is an entirely new game, the first original Spyro since Dawn of the Dragon in 2008. Nearly twenty years since the dragon had his own new adventure. Revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase, it is expected in spring 2027 on a very wide range of platforms: Xbox Series, PC with Xbox Play Anywhere, PS5, Switch 2, Steam and the Epic Games Store. Multiplatform was on the menu from the start.

Second misunderstanding, and it concerns you directly if, like us, the Activision logo gives you cold sweats: Activision is not developing it. The studio at the helm is Toys for Bob, the craftspeople behind the Reignited Trilogy and the excellent Crash Bandicoot 4. Better still: the team left the Call of Duty and Overwatch grind, went independent, and pitched this very Spyro project they had dreamed of making since Reignited. Microsoft said yes. In other words, the most legitimate studio possible, freed from its chains, on a passion project. For skeptics like us, that is the best reason to believe.

What we know

The big new thing, the one that makes this announcement matter, is flight. And not a watered-down flight. Toys for Bob is adamant: it is no longer about gently gliding or taking to the skies in a few dedicated levels like in the original trilogy. Here, free flight is a core pillar of the gameplay, available at any moment, anywhere. You go from ground to sky with a single press, you weave between treetops, you dive off peaks, you chain dives, climbs and tight turns.

The clever part is that the environment responds to the way you fly to make it active rather than contemplative. We saw Spyro set a campfire ablaze with his breath to create an updraft and gain height, then pass through a kind of ring that propels him further. The idea is not to glide limply, but to read the scenery to bounce from one thermal to the next, a bit like chaining movement in the best traversal games. Toys for Bob says it built a whole world around that promise.

As for the rest, the studio insists it stays faithful to the DNA: a collectathon-platformer at heart, built on the foundations of Reignited, with colorful, teeming spaces to comb through every nook and cranny. Tom Kenny, Spyro's historic voice, is back, which is never a trivial detail. On the story, we know little: Spyro finds himself stranded in a strange realm, and his quest to get home is disrupted by an invading force named the Scavs. And yes, for the real ones, the sheep are back.

What worries us

Our first fear is the one already stirring the whole community: does this permanent free flight risk killing the Spyro we love ? The series' entire identity rests on platforming, on that delicious frustration of having to find the right path to reach a height, on the charm of the ground where you charge and breathe fire. If you can fly everywhere, all the time, you are no longer doing platforming, you are outright changing genre. It remains to be seen whether Toys for Bob imposes clever limits, a gauge, thermal constraints, so the sky stays a tool and not a shortcut that flattens everything.

Second reservation, the atmosphere. The trailer leans on an epic, cinematic register, a great menacing tower under a stormy sky, where Spyro has always cultivated a hushed, dreamlike, almost cozy atmosphere. Part of the fanbase fears too solemn a drift, and we understand them: the originals' distinctive audio and visual signature, those magical skyboxes and that funky music by Stewart Copeland, made half the charm. Nothing confirms Copeland's return for now, and Spyro's new design, deemed a little smooth by some, is already dividing people.

Are we waiting for it ?

We are, and this time without much effort. We came in jaded, ready to call out yet another cynical rehash, and we leave with a real glimmer of hope. Because it is not a remake, because it is Toys for Bob free and motivated, because the flight idea, if well framed, can genuinely reinvent the formula without betraying it. We have seen this year that a franchise return can be a success when the love is sincere, and here the love is obvious.

Everything will hinge on balance, that taut wire between the exhilarating novelty of the sky and the ground platforming that is the heart of Spyro. So we keep a watchful eye and a childlike heart. The dragon is back, and for once, we almost feel like believing with our eyes closed. To be continued.