Spyro Reignited Trilogy first gameplay shows it could be the perfect nostalgia trip

Spyro The Dragon is back in the form of Spyro Reignited Trilogy. Just like the money-maker that was Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy, Activision hopes its remastering of PlayStation Spyro The Dragon titles will lead its retro properties to success for a second time.

On initial announcement back in March, details were relatively scant. Now though, following E3 2018, there’s a flood of information about Spyro Reignited Trilogy for you to sink your teeth into. One of the most important details to take away from this E3 week is that you can actually already save 10% on a copy of Spyro Reignited Trilogy before it’s even released.

If that’s not a good enough reason to care about Spyro Reignited Trilogy perhaps seeing 11 minutes of it in action will do it for you.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy release date: When’s it coming out?

The Spyro Reignited Trilogy lands on 21 September on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy story: What’s it about?

Seeing as this is, strictly speaking, a remastering of a set of original PlayStation titles – and three games at that – there’s no great single story to be told here. Our titular hero, Spyro, is a dragon from the land of the Dragon Kingdom and, in his first outing, he’s tasked with saving the other dragons from an evil spell cast upon them by Gnasty Gnorc – a half-gnome, half-orc who harbours a hatred for the Dragon Kingdom.

In Spyro: Gateway to Glimmer – or Ripto’s Rage in the US – Spyro finds himself in an alternate realm and, well, it’s just far too complex to succinctly explain. Essentially, some creatures need rescuing and bad guys need stopping, so that’s what happens.

In the final entry into the trilogy, Spyro: Year of the Dragon it actually takes place in the year of the dragon, the same year the game was actually released. It’s a pretty similar situation to the previous two games, but this time there’s a chance to use a skateboard because Spyro’s a badass and it launched in 2000.

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Spyro Reignited Trilogy gameplay: How does it play?

Looking at gameplay footage from this year’s E3, Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a lovingly remade version of the first three Spyro games to grace the original PlayStation. Just like Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy, you’ll get three games in one single package meaning you can play Spyro the Dragon, Spyro: Gateway to Glimmer and Spyro Year of the Dragon in one continuous game. Presumably, like Crash Bandicoot, you can jump into the Spyro game you want to, instead of having to work your way through them individually.

In terms of visuals, it’s clearly been entirely overhauled from the PlayStation releases. Interestingly, the team at Toys for Bob didn’t have access to the original source code for Insomniac’s game series so had to build it all from scratch. You’d have thought this would have a big impact on just how the game feels but, going by previews and the painstaking efforts of the Toys for Bob team, it sounds as if it really does feel close to the source material.