Posted in: Games, GDC, Video Games | Tagged: activision, activision blizzard, Bobby Kotick, GDC, Spyro, spyro the dragon, Spyro's Kingdom
Activison Almost Made a Spyro the Dragon MMORPG
Word has been going around about a trilogy of remastered Spyro the Dragon games, because remasters are so hot right now. However, this is a casual reminder that Activision was considering a Spyro MMO a few years back. That MMO would have been similar to Istaria or The I of the Dragon but, mutliplayer.
No, we don't have any official word about the remasters, thus, we're chatting about a canned game because we can.
The folks over at Did You Know Gaming have put together a new video about the canned Spyro MMO, from concept to toys to being thrown straight into the trash. But in short, way back when developer Helios Interactive were looking to reboot the franchise in 2012, they pitched Activision a game called Spyro's Kingdom which was an MMORPG where players could make their own dragons and take on quests from Spyro, who ruled the land as its King. Helios even made playable alpha builds and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick approved of the concept, but the idea was canned to put more emphasis on the put-toys-into-a-game concept. You can check out a GDC talk about that here if you're interested. Long story short on that front, Toys For Bob expanded on the toy integration idea and thus we wound up with Skylanders which inevitably led to Spyro characters appearing in Skylanders. After all, both Toys For Bob and Helios are subsidiaries of Activision.
And the Spyro MMO idea got shoved to the back of a dusty closet in Acitivions HQ where it belongs.
You can check out the Did You Know Gaming history video below.