Spyro: Year of the Dragon is a classic 3D platformer that’s well-remembered as a wholesome, fun adventure. But there’s nothing wholesome about the prototype of the game recently leaked online by YouTube user Hwd405. Instead of happy memories and cute interactions, here The Forgotten Realms are very, very rude. In fact, it seems like everybody hates Spyro in this build of the game.
“Go jump in a lake,” Hunter tells Spyro in one leaked image from the build.
Moneybags, who clearly feels the same, is more succinct.
“Piss off,” he says to Spyro.
Later, he also tells the dragon what he’ll need to do to rescue Bianca the rabbit — “Pay me fat duckets or the chick dies.”
Yes, this is technically what happens in the game — but Moneybags could stand to be a bit nicer about the whole thing.
This Spyro prototype build is dated April 25, 2000 and is believed to match a demo build shown off at E3 and to games journalists that year. The prototype levels weren’t meant to be accessible to the wider public, and when you take a look at the screenshots it’s easy to see why.
Hunter in particular has a very potty mouth.
This text was ultimately replaced in the final game by more age-appropriate dialogue — but it’s fascinating to see the behind-the-scenes of such an iconic game. Builds like these are fairly rare and only turn up in leaks (usually obtained via questionable means) or through demo cracks created by eager fans.
While it’s hard to know the intentions behind this placeholder dialogue, it’s clear the developers were having a bit of fun here. Games development is a stressful business, and it’s hilarious to see the ways in which Insomniac Games was blowing off steam. It’s just a shame this dialogue didn’t make it into the final cut of the game.
Rather than campaign for the “Ayer Cut” of Suicide Squad or to “Restore the Snyderverse“, maybe pop culture fans should be asking Insomniac to release the Rude Spyro Cut instead.
If you’d like to see more of the preview build which includes oddities like unused creatures, different designs for characters and loads of mean placeholder text, you can view snippets of the prototype on YouTube here:
You can also read more about the Spyro prototype, including the major changes between this version of the build and the final release via Hidden Palace, a website focusing on the preservation of video game development media.
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