Spyro's Kingdom
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Spyro's Kingdom | |
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| Developer(s): | Helios Interactive (game proposal) Toys for Bob |
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| Released: | Cancelled |
| Genre: | MMORPG |
Spyro's Kingdom was a defunct Spyro game concept. The game concept was first proposed by Helios Interactive with the game based on The Legend of Spyro series, but it was rejected by Activision. Under Toys for Bob, the game idea soon evolved into concepts similar to its successor, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.
A playable demo of Helios Interactive's version of Spyro's Kingdom was available for download on the Helios website for the game, but was deleted sometime after the website was discovered.
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Details
Spyro's Kingdom was the original concept for Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, its successor. It started life as a project, which Graham says still featured "the toys-to-life idea - taking your toys, putting them on a magic device, and having them come to life in the game. Spyro was going to be a full-grown dragon and the king of Spyro’s Kingdom. You would go to him for quests, and he'd tell you where to go and help you on your adventures.
Graham says this version of the game "was very close to something we were going to go forward with. I think it was April or May of 2010 where we were almost ready to hit alpha with Spyro's Kingdom, and it was time for the go/no-go call. That’s where we said, ‘this is fun and cute, but it can be so much bigger.'"
At this point, one of Skylanders' key elements - "toys with brains," which remember your characters' progress as you level up — wasn’t in the mix. If the action figures had memory inside them, the save functionality would be hassle-free and invisible, plus they’d be platform agnostic — a huge win for kids who might not own the same game system as their friends. "The goal was to make it very reminiscent of something you would do as a kid," says Graham. "You could put your toys in your backpack, go to your friend’s house after school, and you could play with your Star Wars characters with your G.I. Joe characters with your Transformers characters; it didn’t matter that they were from different worlds. We looked at consoles that way too: How great could it be if you could share in an experience regardless of what console you were on? So there was this big idea of what this game could be."
With Spyro's Kingdom nearly at alpha but an ambitious alternate plan on the table, the decision was up to the top brass, including Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. But as Graham reveals, "Bobby believed in it completely. He said, 'What do you guys need?’ And from that point on, it was this little idea that continued to grow to what we have now, which is a team of fantasy superheroes - Skylanders."[1]
Cancellation
Spyro's Kingdom was originally going to be a mature Spyro game with a much darker tone, that also included blood, but the developers of Toys for Bob lost their enthusiasm and felt that this direction did not feel like "Spyro".[2]
Gallery
Trivia
- If the idea of Spyro's Kingdom had been approved, it would've been the first Spyro MMORPG game made, the first eventually being Skylanders: Universe.
- Spyro's eyes are blue in one of the concept art images by Helios Interactive, unlike in the orginal Spyro series and The Legend of Spyro series where his eyes are purple.
- The Helios Interactive website for the Spyro's Kingdom demo, as well as its concept art, has been deleted, presumably after people discovered the site.
- Whirlwind, Bash, Ghost Roaster, Eruptor, and Stealth Elf can be on their elemental respective islands on the Spyro's Kingdom main menu.
- Zap's earlier character design, Cyclops Snail, can be seen on the Spyro's Kingdom main menu.
