Spyro (franchise)



The Spyro franchise is a series of platforming games starring Spyro the Dragon. The games were originally developed by Insomniac Games for the PlayStation, starting with the release of Spyro the Dragon in 1998, and published by Digital Eclipse. It is the sister franchise of the Crash Bandicoot series. The whole series has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, as of October 2007. In an interview, Ted Price said that Insomniac stopped developing Spyro games after Spyro: Year of the Dragon because Spyro could not hold anything in his hands, therefore limiting his actions.

For the first three games, Spyro became a mascot for the PlayStation alongside Crash Bandicoot, both of whom appeared in several games together. In the 2000s, the Spyro series has switched between various publishers and developers. Since 2008, when Activision acquired the rights to the franchise, the Spyro series has entered a long hiatus. In 2011, the Spyro series spawned a large spin-off series, the Skylanders franchise, which contributed to the Spyro series' abandonment. However, in 2018, Activision published the Spyro Reignited Trilogy on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, a whole decade since a game has been released in the Spyro series.