Microsoft’s subscription serviceGame Passwill be getting three classicSpyro the Dragongames this month, per an announcement on its official X (formerly Twitter) account. First launched in 2017, Game Pass has grown into a repository of games both new and old. From second runs of big-budget AAAs likeDeath Strandingon Game Pass, to day-one releases of indies andMicrosoft staples likeFlight Simulator, Game Pass has made a name for itself with its diverse catalogue and ease of access.
That catalogue is growing even further this month, asthe officialGame PassX account has teased the arrival of theSpyro Reignited Trilogyon November 12. The announcement simply shows a chest from the collection with a cryptic caption, leading many to speculate about whichSpyrogames it could refer to.
Microsoft later confirmed in anXbox Wirepost thatthe game in question was theReignited Trilogy. It’ll be available on the Standard and Ultimate tiers on Xbox, as well as all tiers on PC, and can be played either via direct download or cloud streaming.
Spyro The Dragon Is Coming To Game Pass
What The Reignited Trilogy Includes
Released in 2018,theSpyro Reignited Trilogycomprises a full remake of the first threeSpyrogames:Spyro the Dragon,Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, andSpyro: Year of the Dragon. Each of these is a boss-battling collect-a-thon, in which Spyro must gather a certain number of gems and defeat the evil monsters invading his world in order to progress though a series of platforming challenges. That’s up to 70 hours ofSpyrogameplay in a single package. To reflect the excitement, the officialSpyroX account simply replied with a series of wide-eyed emojis.
TheSpyroseries celebrated its 25th anniversarylast year, and there’s scarcely a better way to celebrate its history. TheReignitedTrilogywas widely hailed asone of the most accurate remakes in recent memory. Its visuals saw a huge bump in resolution, but its art style remained unchanged. Its levels were almost perfect, one-to-one matches to their original incarnations. The only real difference is that certain new features from the later games were retroactively added to the earlier ones, providing gameplay consistency across the board.
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Many players responded with similar breathless, all-caps excitemen. Butsome, like @Josh40593167hoped this was a prelude to a bigger announcement: an entirely newSpyrogame.
Of course,this is totally unconfirmed, but still very much possible. It’s not unheard of for landmark series to put some of their older titles on Game Pass (or similar services like PlayStation Plus) shortly before new titles come out. It’s good for a little free press, renewing interest in the series and ideally boosting sales of the next title. Still, Microsoft has neither confirmed nor denied this.
Our Take: So Many Major Franchises Are Being Brought To Game Pass
Game Pass Is A Paragon Of Game Preservation
In today’s video game industry, where the US Copyright Office asserts that digitally sharing access to long-abandoned games constitutes infringement, and players are told they don’t actually own the games that they buy, a subscription-based service like Game Pass could easily be part of the problem. Instead, it makes its collection of classic games likeSpyro,Quake,Morrowind,Fallout,Doom,Fable, and so much more easily available for a reasonable fee. Things like that makeGame Passa force for good in an often consumer-hostile industry.
