Reigniting flames in old fans — Interview with Toys for Bob’s Peter Kavic on Spyro Reignited Trilogy

At E3 2018, I had the opportunity to sit down with Toys for Bob’s Senior Producer Peter Kavic to talk about their latest game, the highly anticipated Spyro Reignited Trilogy. Unfortunately due to hardware error, the first few questions have been lost, including the first portion of the first question listed below. We apologize for the inconvenience.

What are some of the quality of life changes to this trilogy?

…it’s added instrumentation when you’re in a boss area, things that can make it feel robust, it’s more color to the audio soundtrack.

Kavic discussed with me how each of the Dragons are unique this time around, with all of them reflecting their homeworld, such as the Dragons in the Artisian Homeworld being artist-inspired, one holding a brush and easel in Toasty’s realm.

Is there any contact with original composer for Spyro the Dragon, Stewart Copeland?

Toys for Bob is doing the development for all of the music. We haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it, but all the development is happening in house.

What have you done to make the world seem less sparse, like with the environments and enemy placements?

We didn’t want to do anything that would detract, so, by that I mean we didn’t want to take away from, let’s say, a speedrunner’s experience, somebody who has really intimate muscle memory knowledge. We kept the enemies, gem placements, variety of destructibles in the same areas, that ties in with how we had the environments mapped towards the originals, so we wanted to keep authenticity there, but the opportunities we had were things like adding grass that reflects movement, so you’ll be able to see yourself moving through the grass, or singe it with your breath. You can also see elements of different buildings popping out more, so you’ll see turrets that have banners on them, there’s like, ivy crawling on the walls, you’ll see minute detail on the stonework, so a lot of opportunities there, we were able to take the world around you, and make that feel more alive, and lived in, and that, to me, feels more, like the world is more populated. Just getting more to look at, because this is a game series that is about the wonder of looking around you, and so when you have that and there are more things catching you’re eye, you’re just, bits and pieces that are exciting, makes it feel like a lived in world.

There are quality of life things, control wise, that were added in later games, like the addition of a little hop when you hit triangle, can we expect to see that in the first game?

We were as faithful as possible to the original games.

Kavic discussed with me that, at E3, they are focusing on presenting the first game in the trilogy, Spyro the Dragon, meaning that there are still plenty of secrets in store for the rest of the trilogy.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share?

The Spyro Reignited Trilogy is coming out on September 21st, it’s going to be $39.99 and it’s the first three games. I hope you guys have fun with it, I certainly am!

I want to thank Peter Kavic again for taking his time to answer our questions. Spyro Reignited Trilogy will be released on September 21st, 2018 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with visual enhancements on PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X.