Prerelease:Spyro: Year of the Dragon/Pre-E3 Screenshots
This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Spyro: Year of the Dragon.
Spyro: Year of the Dragon was first announced to the public during E3 2000 on May 11th, 2000. A number of screenshots were released to the press for use in their publications - known as the Pre-E3 Screenshots - appearing to depict the earliest version of the game that has been shown to the public, currently. While only five of these screenshots seem to have been favoured by online review sites in the initial release, there is a much greater variety of images, and many of them made their way into magazine reviews and previews for the game, or even the game's official website in a couple of cases. As such, many of the images are harder to find and their origin is often unclear, and the original full quality versions of a few of the images are yet to be recovered. Oftentimes the only indication that an image is part of this particular group of screenshots is because it's grouped in with other images already known to be part of this batch.
The build seen in these screenshots can clearly be seen to be earlier than the one shown on the E3 showfloor. The levels shown in this version are Sunny Villa, Cloud Spires, Sheila's Alp, Spooky Swamp, Bamboo Terrace, Sgt. Byrd's Base, Frozen Altars, Lost Fleet, Bentley's Outpost and Agent 9's Lab. Interestingly, this matches nearly perfectly with in-game evidence in the final game (e.g. the moby IDs list) which suggests (though, does not necessarily confirm) that the first levels that were worked on were - in order - Bamboo Terrace, Spooky Swamp, Lost Fleet, Frozen Altars, Bentley's Outpost, Sheila's Alp, Sgt. Byrd's Base, Agent 9's Lab, Cloud Spires, Molten Crater and Sunny Villa. It is believed that GameSpot UK uploaded all the images from this batch (the majority of which were not archived on the WayBack Machine), of which there are 28.[1]
The original collection of Pre-E3 screenshots first shown alongside coverage of the E3 event were included on an official Sony E3 2000 Artwork disc[2], and this seems to be the original source for the screenshots used by many articles on the event. The Spyro 3 screenshots on this disc are dated March 27th, 2000, suggesting that these screenshots were taken before that date, if not on that exact date.
Contents
Screenshots
The full collection of screenshots - a few of which have not been obtained in their original resolution - can be seen below.
Sunny Villa
The Sunny Villa screenshots show brief shots of the main area and Sheila sublevel, but do not depict the skateboarding sublevel.
Main area
Sheila sublevel
The fountain seen in the first screenshot would be removed later in development, but can be seen in the April 25th build. The balconies in the background, however, were removed by the time of this prototype, presumably as they provide early access to the end of the level should the player glide across to them - the entrance to the skateboarding sublevel can be seen in the left balcony.
In Sheila's sublevel, there is an enemy which doesn't appear in Sunny Villa in the final game. A character using its model is briefly seen in the "Bianca Strikes Back" and "A Monster To End All Monsters" cutscenes, though. One of the platforms in the background appears to be missing, too.
Cloud Spires
The Cloud Spires screenshots show brief shots of the main area and belltowers sublevel, but do not depict the sun seeds sublevel.
Main area
Belltowers sublevel
The Rhynoc primadonnas have a slightly different look, missing one of their metal plates. This is similar to how they appear in the April 25th build.
In the belltowers sublevel, the black cloud which follows behind the spirit appears to be absent. This is particularly unusual considering that the spirits are present with their cloud trails in Spyro 2.
Spooky Swamp
The Spooky Swamp screenshots show brief shots of the main area, but do not depict either of the sublevels.
Main area
Main area
The enemy is coloured brown in the final game, rather than blue.
Bamboo Terrace
The only Bamboo Terrace screenshot shows the main area, with neither of the sublevels appearing in any of the screenshots.
Main area
Here Spyro is seen flaming a cut tiger enemy that was ultimately replaced by the oxen in the final version of the game.
In 2018, Insomniac Live held a speedrun stream for the game, featuring several of the game's developers, and upon being asked about why the tiger was removed from the game, developer Brian Hastings recalls that they had difficulty making its turning animation look good, resulting in its removal.[3] Additionally, Insomniac Designer Head Brian Allgeier later revealed a bit more about this cut enemy, such as that it would have chased after Spyro to attack him. He also mentioned that an idea which was tossed around for this enemy was for it to try and maul the Rhynocs found in the level.[4]
The enemy can be seen in the April 25th build, but it is not seen to chase any Rhynocs around.
Sgt. Byrd's Base
In both shots, Sgt. Byrd can be seen to be using an early version of his texture, which can also be seen in a couple of the demo or prototype builds, as well as in certain parts of certain versions of the final game. Oddly, this version of his design seems to diverge further from his concept art than his final design does.
In the first image, there seems to be some kind of wall surrounding one of the Rhynocs. The second image features an unusual and unnatural camera angle, possibly meaning that a tool was used for taking these screenshots, rather than them being natural in-game shots.
Frozen Altars
The only Frozen Altars screenshot shows the main area, with neither of the sublevels appearing in any of the screenshots.
Main area
Spyro is seen using his flame attack in Frozen Altars despite the fact that he has a modified ice breath attack in this level. The difference may be purely cosmetic, though. The snowman enemy can't usually be defeated without using one of the magnifying glasses provided by the level, and it's unclear if the fact that the player is attacking it means that that was different in this build of the game. The ice wall in the background was also removed in the final game, and the entrance to the building was moved.
Agent 9's Lab
Agent 9's clothes seem to be more of a yellow colour as opposed to his usual green colouring. His eyes are much smaller (or rather, the white vertex colouring making up part of his eyes is instead brown), differing greatly from the much larger eyes seen in the final game. Early concept art shows that he was originally conceived with normal-sized eyes, as per the final. Once again, the camera angle is unnaturally close to the player.
