Toys for Bob Explains Why Spyro: A Realm Beyond Isn’t Officially “Spyro 4”
Spyro is officially making his first all-new platforming comeback in nearly two decades, but developer Toys for Bob has confirmed the game won’t be called “Spyro 4” — and the studio has now laid out why it chose a title over a number. Speaking with press following the reveal of Spyro: A Realm Beyond at the Xbox Games Showcase, Toys for Bob explained that the purple dragon’s tangled continuity, spread across the original trilogy, The Legend of Spyro reboot and Skylanders, made a strictly numbered sequel the wrong fit for a series trying to welcome brand-new players.
Fans Wanted “Spyro 4” for Years, Toys for Bob Chose Otherwise
The demand for a numbered sequel wasn’t invented overnight. Yan and Studdert acknowledged they’re incredibly aware of the love that fans have, and working on this since around 2023 they’ve had to hear a lot of pleading from fans to create a Spyro 4. That pressure only grew louder once Toys for Bob’s earlier work on Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time proved a numbered legacy sequel could work commercially and creatively for a sibling franchise.
But Spyro’s history doesn’t line up as neatly as Crash’s does. When asked directly whether A Realm Beyond is a sequel, soft reboot or hard reboot, the studio didn’t give a clean answer. Yan explained that the team wanted to preserve the character of Spyro from the original games, but that “the actual Spyro timeline is fractured all over the place,” adding that bringing back Tom Kenny signals the foundation they’re building off. Multiple prior projects — the darker Legend of Spyro trilogy, the toy-driven Skylanders spin-off, and the faithful Reignited Trilogy remaster — have each told a slightly different version of the character, leaving no single “Spyro 3” for a “Spyro 4” to cleanly follow.
Why Crash Bandicoot 4 Got a Number and Spyro Didn’t
The contrast with Toys for Bob’s own Crash Bandicoot 4 is instructive. That 2020 game was explicitly built as a direct continuation of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, deliberately picking up story threads decades later and using the numbered title to signal that continuity to longtime fans. Spyro: A Realm Beyond takes the opposite approach: rather than anchoring itself to one specific past entry, it positions itself as a fresh jumping-on point.
Studio head Paul Yan has been candid about the tightrope that creates. Yan told GamesRadar at Summer Game Fest that “if you stick too much to nostalgia, then you basically just rehash,” while going too far the other way risks a game where “you don’t even recognize what the character is and what the series is.” Dropping the number, in effect, gives Toys for Bob room to honour the original trilogy’s tone without being locked into strict continuity math.
Free Flight, the Scavs and Tom Kenny’s Return Anchor the Pitch
Whatever it’s called, A Realm Beyond is aiming to be Spyro’s biggest mechanical leap yet. The reveal trailer and accompanying materials describe Spyro getting stranded in a new realm and needing to fend off an invading force called the Scavs while forging new alliances to find his way home. The headline addition is true, sustained dragon flight rather than the limited gliding and speedway segments of earlier games.
On the newcomer-friendly framing specifically, Toys for Bob has stressed that the game is built to serve two audiences at once. Xbox Wire’s own interview describes the team as having “a whole new level of freedom to build the Spyro game they want – one that fans and new gamers alike truly deserve.” Original voice actor Tom Kenny, who first played the dragon in Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage!, is reprising the role, giving longtime fans a familiar anchor even without a numbered subtitle.
Spyro: A Realm Beyond is pencilled in for release in Spring 2027 for PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S. No Australian or New Zealand pricing has been confirmed yet, though the multiplatform spread means local players won’t need to pick a specific console camp to play it, unlike some of Microsoft’s earlier exclusivity-first launches.
A Comeback Built on Toys for Bob’s Independence Deal
The naming debate is really a symptom of a bigger story: how Spyro ended up back in development at all. According to Toys for Bob, the studio’s split from Activision Blizzard and the pitch for a new Spyro game were negotiated together. Yan explained that “the other half of the proposal was that the first game that we would develop, out of the gate, would be a new title for Xbox, in partnership with them,” a concept the team had been quietly developing since 2018.
Toys for Bob had branched off from Activision Blizzard in February 2024 and announced that it would become an independent studio, a move agreed upon by all parties as necessary for Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard to proceed. That independence, paired with a publishing deal struck with Xbox, ultimately gave the small studio the creative latitude to treat Spyro’s return as a clean slate rather than a numbered continuation — a decision now baked directly into the game’s title.
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