After the success of Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, Toys for Bob spent years supporting Activision’s biggest projects, but the studio is now independent again and returning to the kind of character-driven platform game that built its reputation: a new Spyro.

Toys for Bob has taken a long and unusually complicated route over the past few years. The studio behind the very well-received Spyro: Reignited Trilogy is now making its own original Spyro game as an independent developer, as announced during the Xbox Games Showcase. That would be notable under any circumstances, but it becomes even more striking when placed next to the history of Reignited Trilogy, which sold more than 11 million copies and proved that there was still serious demand for the kind of game Toys for Bob was known for making. Despite that success, the studio was moved into a support role on Call of Duty: Warzone in 2021, with additional work later carried out on Overwatch 2. The team was not failing at those assignments; the problem was that those assignments gradually pulled it away from its own creative identity.

The situation became much sharper in 2024, when Microsoft laid off 1,900 people after acquiring Activision Blizzard, and Toys for Bob was caught in the fallout as well. The studio had 86 staff members affected by the cuts, a serious disruption for a long-running team with a clearly defined history. Just one month later, Toys for Bob announced that it would go independent, a move that may have looked abrupt from the outside but now appears to have been the result of a longer internal process. Speaking to IGN, studio head Paul Yan explained that “there was a corporate mandate for us to move and support larger initiatives,” including games such as Warzone and Overwatch 2. Yan emphasized that Toys for Bob stepped up, supported those teams and projects, and remains proud of the work it did there. The issue was not competence, but direction.

According to Yan, the studio knew deep down that long-term support work was not the right fit. Toys for Bob was drifting away from the kinds of games it loved making and the kinds of games players associated with it. The wider transition around Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision eventually created a moment to propose something far more radical: buying back independence, regaining creative, organizational and financial control, and spinning out as a separate company focused on the games the team actually wanted to build. Yan also made clear that this was not only about creative freedom. It was also about preserving the team, the experience and the accumulated knowledge that had been built over the years. During a Summer Game Fest Q&A session, he said it took “many mini miracles” to make the buyout happen at all.

The new Spyro therefore carries more weight than a simple nostalgic comeback. It is a sign that Toys for Bob is once again working in the space where it has already proven its strengths. The studio has shown before that it understands Spyro’s world, rhythm and tone, so its independence has a clear creative dimension as well as a business one. This is not just the story of a developer separating from a major publisher; it is the story of a team trying to protect the identity that could easily have been flattened inside a much larger corporate machine.

Source: PC Gamer