Spyro has finally returned after almost 20 years.
Former Activision studio Toys for Bob took itself back to the independent circuit a few years ago, assuring fans that it wanted to return to its roots. Toys for Bob got its first major breakthrough with Skylanders almost twenty years ago, conceived as a spin-off to Activision and Insomniac's Spyro franchise.
Since then, Toys for Bob became instrumental in keeping the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro franchises alive, in an era beset by service game hype and catering to older gamers. Arguably, the colorful mascot genre suffer some neglect from big publishers in recent years, but there are green shoots of change beginning to shine through.
At the Xbox Showcase 2026, Toys for Bob unveiled Spyro: A Realm Beyond in a brief teaser, which gave us a glimpse of a modernized Spyro, complete with fully-fledged flying mechanics — not gliding or in special events, but full flight.
I caught up with Toys for Bob this week to learn more about where the studio is at. Xbox acquired Toys for Bob when it purchased Activision Blizzard a few years ago. Toys for Bob subsequently decided to buy back its independence and get back to what they're most passionate about.
I asked how Spyro is positioned in an era dominated by youngsters playing Roblox, where colorful mascot games of yore have been ill-served by big publishers.
"We do see it coming back, this wave of appealing, mascot-based character games, which is great." Toys for Bob told me at Summer Games Fest this week. "It's something that has always driven our studio through its tenure. We have that experience through Skylanders; we have a high tenure rate in our team creating these types of experiences for players. Fun characters, fun worlds you want to inhabit, Spyro's role is an amplification of that."
"Things are cyclical, trends are cyclical. There was a rush on service-based games, and now there's been a big return to single-player games. We're starting to see Astrobot, Ray-man return ... it's super exciting. We're cheering on the return to optimistic games and experiences."
That's the torch we want to carry. Specific to Spyro, if you look at Re-ignited, it validated the return of the franchise. The audience for Spyro Re-ignited were nostalgic adults, some are parents passing their experiences on to the next generation ... they're very accessible. Whatever we can do to encourage that, that's our mission. That's the future we want, the world needs more joy."
Toys for Bob told me that they were super proud of the work they did during the pandemic, where the abrupt shift to work-from-home game design had Activision pull all of its subsidiary teams on keeping the Call of Duty train rolling.
Toys for Bob worked on Call of Duty's battle royale mode, Warzone, but they explained to me it's not where their hearts were. Their hearts were here: in colorful, broadly appealing mascot games, and Spyro: A Realm Beyond is their first flag planted in that new era.
Spyro: A Realm Beyond will launch in 2027 for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox PC with Xbox Play Anywhere, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, Steam, and the Epic Games Store.
Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.
