Spyro officially making his surprise return on Xbox

Spyro is finally back, but the way in which our favourite purple dragon (sorry Maleficent) has returned does imply that his future on PlayStation might not be looking too bright.

As announced on the official Xbox Wire Twitter account yesterday, Spyro Reignited Trilogy will be coming to Xbox Game Pass on 12 November (hey, that’s today!).

“Spyro is coming to Xbox Game Pass!” stated the tweet, “Jump into the Spyro Reignited Trilogy on Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass PC [on] November 12.”

The general response to the news has been pretty positive, like this reply from user @1GrumpyOldGamer who stated, “Wow, that brings back memories of playing the originals. Can’t wait to jump into this again!”

Honestly, the real news to me here is that this title wasn’t already available on Xbox Game Pass… considering that Microsoft has officially owned Activision Blizzard (the current Spyro rights holders) for some time now - and it seems that at least a few of the commenters agree.

Take a look at the little guy in action below.

“I don't understand why we being spoon fed the Activision games,” replied @Yahya_no_1, “You own the damn library, release them all.”

More importantly, however, Spyro’s appearance on the Xbox Game Pass does imply that Microsoft is in the process of (slowly) adding Activision’s back catalogue of games to the service.

Considering that Spyro is one of the first of Activision's properties to find its way onto the service, it could potentially mean that Microsoft has plans for a new Spyro game in the future.

As Spyro started life as a Sony Interactive Entertainment-published PlayStation 1 title back in 1998, it is kind of weird to see that Microsoft have the exclusive rights to the character moving forward - although Toys For Bob has now split from Activision, whilst remaining in partnership on its next title.

Would be even weirder still if they decided not to make Spyro’s next game a multi-platform affair, but given the disparity between Xbox and PlayStation’s sales numbers… I’d wager any potential game would be a timed exclusive (at most).