Spyro 5 (Cancelled Game)

Waffled · Sep 09, 2015 6:06 PM

So apparently a developer on the Spyro sequel Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly revealed that there was a planned concept for a"Spyro 5" following the release of ETD. The project went under the working title "Wedding Crasher" as it featured Hunter and Bianca's wedding (0.0).

The project only went under one month's planning before being put on hold as the team working on the title were merged with the other team that was working on ETD (whereas previously the two teams would have been working on the two games in parallel).

The developer describes the game as such:

...Spyro 5 (Wedding Crasher) was to open up to the wedding of Hunter and Bianca, taking place in the Artisan Homeworld from the first ever Spyro. All of a sudden, right when they kiss, a large portal shoots out of the ground, and who comes out? The Sorceress. Yes, she was to come back. She caught wind of Bianca and Hunters wedding and purposely wanted to break it up. When she emerged, she stole Bianca's ring and ran back into the portal. Spyro, of course, follows her.

After the loading screen, another cut scene appears. Spyro would look around and find out he is in a new world known as Asaygo, a dark world where the inhabitants are all being held as slaves by a group of magical wizards, known as the "Spell Bounders", and the Sorceress is one of them. Spyro would have to collect power crystals from about 50 levels to open a portal to the wizard castle, to where he would defeat the wizards.

This title would have featured more character returns, such as The Sorceress and Elora, and would have potentially been the largest Spyro title released.

Of course, the game was cancelled due to, well, obvious reasons tongue

This would have been an interesting and exciting concept in my opinion, but given the way ETD turned out, it probably might have been for the best that this game didn't get released. And if they also considered this as a possible Spyro sequel then that just reinforces that possibility tongue

What do you think?

Source: http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/spy … tle.57788/

Morgan · Sep 09, 2015 6:40 PM

This sounds like it would've been really good. But, 50 levels? That does sound a bit over-ambitious.

EricChristianOlsenFanatic · Sep 09, 2015 11:12 PM

This sounds like it would have been an interesting game, minus the 50 levels.

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Sep 10, 2015 12:27 AM

sounds like it would have been an interesting game! too bad all that other stuff happened as well.

oh and hey, Flapjacks, the link above answers your question in the one other thread about the engine used in ETD. the guy mentions it a few posts down:

Spyro ETDF used its own built from the ground up engine. Nothing was recycled from the last games aside from sound effects and voice clips.

and also, on page 2 he explains "Enchanted Forest":

It was actually a world from the second homeworld. This is where Agent 9 would be seen in game.

The music WAS created, and the level was also created. It was wiped from the disc when Homeworld 2 was dropped. Copeland did make music for it, because the level was up and running. Copeland always played the levels before composing because he wanted to get the feel for it to make his music match the level. The level was fully playable. The reason for it being playable, while Homeworld 2 wasn't even developed, was because the forest was actually a Homeworld 1 level on initial conception. The entrance to the level would have actually been a large cluster of trees near the Dragon Element Statue. If I recall correctly, you would walk toward the cluster and a tree would "Launch" you into the air on a log, and the loading screen would show Spyro flying on a log.

i see someone else from Check Six is also supposed to be posting there sometime soon, so that should be interesting!

Slvr99 · Sep 10, 2015 1:57 AM

I don't see how people don't realize this guy is fake. The most obvious thing is the guy has no name in the credits at all. If he had anything to do with the game, he would be in there. And there's so many more reasons why he isn't real.

LXShadow · Sep 10, 2015 2:34 AM

Just a heads-up guys, Slvr isn't a loon (I think it's likely that since nobody else has talked about the same things we've talked about, his post is more than a little unconvincing =P).

I'd take this news with a grain of salt. It'd be great to be proven wrong, but there's a few things that bother me with regards to his consistency, as well as the practicality of this story in industry terms. His latest claim about the Dreamcast thing raises my eyebrow even further than it did at first.

1. He's half-revealing himself: 'my name's Dan and I work at Activision but *cough* *cough* I can't reveal myself'. This is strange behaviour, one who wants to be anonymous will typically say they're an anonymous worker at [this place], and one who doesn't mind being known will typically mention their name and position. I might be wrong on this, but it seems weird to me.
2. No evidence at all! But it's justified: because everything was conveniently destroyed.
3. He mentions they were developing an exclusive version on a dead console (Dreamcast) in a dead country (Spyro 3 wasn't even released in Japan due to lack of success), before backtracking and making his 'just for fun' claim which I find to be just as dubious.
4. Tells us that it was in development from mid-2000, also tries to tell us the game was rushed. (Trivia: Traveller's Tales impressively created The Wrath of Cortex from scratch in one year.)
5. Tries to suggest that Universal 'suddenly' forced them to terminate development in October 2002. This is false: Spyro Enter the Dragonfly was announced to be a November release as far back as April 2002, when screenshots were already available. Furthermore, the final US game was actually built (finished) in September 2002--earlier than he claims that Universal stopped them. His view that they 'needed a few more months' to fix it because the development was suddenly ended is a juvenile perspective of how the game industry actually works. (though there are rare cases, though they are arguably juvenile themselves)
6. Apparently Insomniac handed their copyrighted assets, including engine source code (traits of which Insomniac was still using even by Ratchet & Clank) and models? Interesting treatment--considering the PS2 was already coming out, Crash was already working on it and we all knew Spyro was next, and Crash was made with original assets.
7. Has familiar typing patterns, with familiar quirks, reminiscent of a familiar troll who continues to evade bans in Spyro communities by alternative names and even now has a seemingly obsessive desire to constantly make up rumours of games that don't exist, in exactly the places I'd expect to find him, in the exact ways I'd expect to him to post them. Personal opinion.

There's no evidence, guys. I'll take this all back and apologise profusely if by some miracle this is all proven, but this happened too many times already. Some people don't grow up.

Edit: On a more fun note though, I'd love to see someone ask him if he knows how to trigger the mysterious flying cow that nobody has figured out how to trigger in the homeworld. Because if he actually knows that, colour me impressed; and I miiiiight have some apologising to do!

Last edited by LXShadow (Sep 10, 2015 2:39 AM)

Stormy · Sep 10, 2015 2:57 AM

That's a little disappointing. sad It would have been interesting to see the photos and screenshots he refers to, but obviously there's nothing to see if they don't really exist.

Out of curiosity, who is the troll? Some anonymous person on Wikipedia keeps editing the Spyro article with fake information, and I'm wondering if it might be the same troll you're talking about. If you'd rather not say, that's okay.

Bitmap · Sep 10, 2015 4:05 AM

You know, I'm 50/50 about this guy. I want to believe him but at the same time he conveniently knows everything about Spyro. Also, releasing the character models wouldn't 'break a contract' because an old contract signed with a long-dead publisher could be 'broken' and nobody could do anything about it. He really needs to prove us wrong.

LXShadow · Sep 10, 2015 10:19 AM

Stormy wrote:

That's a little disappointing. It would have been interesting to see the photos and screenshots he refers to, but obviously there's nothing to see if they don't really exist.
Out of curiosity, who is the troll? Some anonymous person on Wikipedia keeps editing the Spyro article with fake information, and I'm wondering if it might be the same troll you're talking about. If you'd rather not say, that's okay.

It's someone so familiar that it's not even funny. x.x I wasn't sure about giving him due attention, but since you asked: based purely on his typing styles and attitudes, and other evidence which I don't want to reveal in case he decides to patch them up (he probably hangs around here), I'm 90% certain it's ccrogers/spyrobeta/whatever name he goes by now. Just to add to this, he also made up a Croc game (on that same forum) and another Spyro game before, not long back. And he's the only one I know of who still seems to get a kick out of making this stuff up, which really made him a prime suspect from the get-go. There are not many normal people who do this. =/

Something else I wanted to add while we're at it is that the guy sounds not like someone who's busy making games (and, let's face it, wouldn't be able to remember every detail), and more like an obsessive fan. He goes into unusual amounts of detail about these fantasies of the Sorceress coming back, Hunter and Bianca's wedding, or 'Peace Keepers Redux'--very much Spyro-ised perspective that sound like they're coming from someone obsessed with the classic series. Most actual developers don't have the time to go this deep into the actual canon, or the memory to do so 13 years after the fact. (Edit: My bad--this is basically what Bitmap just said. Sorry I kinda stole your comment XD)

Finally, just want to add that his latest comment about the Dreamcast version ('looks identical to retail') sounds as bogus as the rest as it implies that they had a working Dreamcast version late in the development cycle (reminder of reality: Universal never announced such a thing), despite strongly suggesting earlier that they 'started with Dreamcast and then decided to go PS2', later adding 'we simply had to make a little tech demo', before backtracking onto 'it was a fun project', until finally 'it looked identical to retail'. His first comment on how it would look was 'it wouldn't look as good as it did on the PS2', and his last comment on that was that it 'looks much like the PS2 version'. His story is falling apart.

It sucks though and I agree with everyone that it would be really nice to get some actual info on EtD's development and possible cut content. Although I have a feeling that if we did, it'd be less romantic than it's been made to sound--after all, the final game did have 25ish levels when you include the minigames, and would have had 100 dragonflies if Enchanted Forest made it in. It may well have been a buggy mess, but it may well have met most of its deadlines regardless.

Last edited by LXShadow (Sep 10, 2015 10:21 AM)

Bitmap · Sep 10, 2015 1:24 PM

LXShadow wrote:

Something else I wanted to add while we're at it is that the guy sounds not like someone who's busy making games (and, let's face it, wouldn't be able to remember every detail), and more like an obsessive fan. He goes into unusual amounts of detail about these fantasies of the Sorceress coming back, Hunter and Bianca's wedding, or 'Peace Keepers Redux'--very much Spyro-ised perspective that sound like they're coming from someone obsessed with the classic series. Most actual developers don't have the time to go this deep into the actual canon, or the memory to do so 13 years after the fact.

^This right here is very much true. I talk to many developers all the time about the series' they've worked on. A lot of those people don't focus on those games to the point where they know everything about it. They just happened to be on board. Now I could be spreading a misconception, like many game developers such as our own Ted Price know nearly everything about Ratchet & Clank.

Morgan · Sep 10, 2015 5:21 PM

I'm going to sit on the fence.

EricChristianOlsenFanatic · Sep 10, 2015 9:41 PM

Welp I'm on the fence then about this.

CaptainBee · Sep 10, 2015 10:29 PM

furries getting married is weird

CrystalFissure · Sep 11, 2015 12:51 AM

It's weird. I want it to be real, but at the same time, you never know. But the damage has kinda been done; me, Ratchet5 and Nintendogen64 discussed it all in Ratchet's Enter the Dragonfly LP, but did entertain the fact that it could be *bleep*. In the case it is, guys like Rettroix may have to backtrack.

Also another indicator that it could all be *bleep* is that he said EtD was made from scratch, using no graphical assets. That's not true. If you extract the textures from the game, you can see that there are some IDENTICAL textures. I'll link proper pics later.

CaptainBee · Sep 11, 2015 1:50 AM

WAFFLED YOU HAVE TOLD A LIE
NO EVIDENCE
YOU GET NOTHING
YOU LOSE

Bitmap · Sep 11, 2015 2:11 AM

GOOD DAY SIR

Waffled · Sep 11, 2015 4:15 PM

Ok, I'm sorry sad

Tbh, I just saw this on dS (or was it redit?) and posted stuff here to see if people wanted to talk about it without reading up (which I tend to do roll ).

Pls forgive me yikes

▼Hidden text

Last edited by Waffled (Sep 11, 2015 4:18 PM)

EricChristianOlsenFanatic · Sep 11, 2015 11:02 PM

I forgive you smile :)

LXShadow · Sep 12, 2015 1:23 AM

Yeah don't worry about it Waffled--I mean his claims sound fair enough to the average person. The oddities here are noticable to me mostly because of my industry knowledge as well as hacking experience with the specific games (plus experience with debunking troll rumours in the past, including one by the guy I suspect this to be). My criticism is directed at him and not the people with the good faith to believe him.

So I forgive ya too. smile Wouldn't mind having a piece of that cookie too, looks tasty =P

Waffled · Sep 12, 2015 11:07 AM

YAY! REDEMPTION big_smile

It was the first Cookie I found of google images, but it's still a cookie :3

Well, this guy still hasn't definitely stated that he's a troll and he's still answering some questions, along with promising that another colleague will sign up and answer questions too. Still, if we wait a little more then we can see if all will be revealed or this just dies.

#1 Sep 09, 2015 6:06 PM

Spyro 5 (Cancelled Game)

#2 Sep 09, 2015 6:40 PM

Re: Spyro 5 (Cancelled Game)

#3 Sep 09, 2015 11:12 PM

Re: Spyro 5 (Cancelled Game)

#4 Sep 10, 2015 12:27 AM

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#5 Sep 10, 2015 1:57 AM

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#6 Sep 10, 2015 2:34 AM

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#7 Sep 10, 2015 2:57 AM

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#8 Sep 10, 2015 4:05 AM

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#9 Sep 10, 2015 10:19 AM

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#10 Sep 10, 2015 1:24 PM

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#11 Sep 10, 2015 5:21 PM

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#12 Sep 10, 2015 9:41 PM

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#13 Sep 10, 2015 10:29 PM

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#14 Sep 11, 2015 12:51 AM

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#19 Sep 12, 2015 1:23 AM

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