Spyro is a purple dragon, and the main protagonist of all the Spyro games. Over the span of 20 years, this character has evolved in appearance, voice, and personality. During this long span of time, many gamers have come to know and love this little dragon. Despite this, many may not know how Spyro came to be. What inspired developers to create him? How did he look in earlier designs? Why does he have certain abilities? These are all interesting questions that this site aims to answer.

Continue scrolling to explore how Spyro the Dragon has evolved over these many years.

Spyro The Dragon is where Spyro makes his very first appearance, which has an interesting backstory. Owned by Insomniac at the time, the game company had just finished creating Disrupter, a dark and serious first-person-shooter game that involved blasting aliens. Though it did well, Insomniac didn't think it could have a future, and the team wanted to try something completely different.

Inspired by a dragon in the movie DragonHeart, they decided to go medieval by making the main character a dragon. Though the tone of the game was going to be more serious initially, environment artist Craig Stitt suggested that Spyro The Dragon should be a more light-hearted game.

The idea was taken well-- not only was the team ready to do something new, but also a small, cute dragon would be easier to animate than a large, scary one. And so, concept artist Charles Zembillas (who also did the art for Crash Bandicoot) went straight to work with Spyro's design.

Now that the concept art for Spyro was finished, it was time for the animators to bring him to life. Working with a new engine for the Playstation that allowed visibility over long distances, the animators were able to give Spyro the ability to glide over large spaces. This was to Insomniac's advantage, as it was rare to find games that offered long-distance views at the time.

In addition to gliding, Insomniac also gave Spyro the ability to headbash, charge, and hover, utilizing the number of buttons on a Playstation controller.

Bringing Spyro into his 3D world did have its difficulties. One of the lesser known of these obstacles was figuring out Spyro's color. Though the creators had intended for him to be green, they soon found that he blended into the grass on most of the worlds they made.

As a result, a rainbow of colors were tested on Spyro, until they finally found one that worked best. You guessed it: purple. Purple didn't blend in with any of the game's environments, and as an added bonus, it didn't match the color of any characters from Insomniac's competitors. The color has stuck with Spyro ever since, and was even given deeper meaning in the later games.

Now you know about how Spyro came to be. Creating Spyro was not a short or easy process, but the 20 years of his existence is evidence that it was all worth it. And congratulations—you probably know more about Spyro now than the average fan! Now that you're a Spyro expert, impress your friends by sharing these cool facts with them!