A new leak suggests that the long-awaited and hoped-for Spyro the Dragon 4 is actively in development at Toys for Bob.
Grab the salt though, because the source isn’t the most reliable. Youtuber Canadian Guy Eh runs a channel focused on Spyro, Crash Bandicoot and other classic platformers. Over the years he has made claims that have turned out to be true, and others that have not. Of course, that’s true of all leaks and leakers: information changes, and just because you learned something one day doesn’t mean plans won’t have changed a week later.
According to Canadian Guy Eh, he spoke to multiple multiple sources at PAX East who all confirmed that Toys for Bob is working on a brand new Spyro the Dragon.
“Spyro 4 is in development. That’s a statement. No theory crafting, no evidence-based assumptions, no conspiracies, or even a heavy-handed hint,” he said in his video.
In the video he also confirms that there is a catch: the new game only entered development at the beginning of this year, meaning it’s probably years away from being released.
Apparently, Canadian Guy Eh has known about Spyro 4 for a little while but sources were careful about what they were saying. However, the recent news of Toys for Bob leaving Microsoft to become independent has loosened up some tongues.
“During all of this wave of news since the start of 2024, I have been speaking privately with many, many different people within the industry. In those conversations, I have been hearing whispers of a brand new Spyro being in development. But nothing was concrete. There wasn’t enough for me to conclusively say that something was legitimately in development, and no one was willing to go on record to state this anonymously.” said Canadian Guy Eh.
It was when he travelled to PAX East that Canadian Guy Eh finally got more concrete statements. He managed to corroborate what he had heard with other developers who had heard exactly the same things.
When news hit that Toys for Bob were packing up their toys and heading out on their own, Jez Corden of Windows Central, a typically reliable source, said that the company had reached an agreement with Microsoft to work on a Microsoft-owned IP. Microsoft, of course, now owns the Spyro IP.
Toys for Bob also made reference to fans, “keeping their horns on” in their statement, which could be nothing more than a fun nod to the series but could also have been a little hint.
Canadian Guy Eh states in his video that it was Jez Corden’s report that made him confident enough to publish his own video.
“I’m not here to fact-check Jez. Heck, I’m not even here to report on what Jez just said. I am here to confirm that Jez is 100% right as I heard everything that he said in this article and then some before it was published, both while being at PAX East and from previous private conversations that I mentioned at the start of this video.” said Canadian Guy Eh.
He returned to PAX East the day after Jez’s report went live and talked once again to the developers and content creators he had chatted with the day prior. One in particular who was apprehensive to open up about what they had heard was now more confident and provided further details, all because of Jez’s report.
“So, without further ado, I can confirm this statement: as of March 2024, Spyro 4 is currently in development. It is being handled by Toys for Bob and development started in and around January 2024.” said Canadian Guy Eh.
He also noted that due to their new-found independence, Toys for Bob can work directly with Microsoft rather than dealing with “Activision bureaucracy and without the risk of being shifted onto other larger Activision projects at the expense of their own.”
Toys for Bob previously created the fantastic Spyro the Dragon: Reignited Trilogy which sold over 10m copies.