Trivia / The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon

• Deleted Scene:
  • One of the planned scenes would've explained how Cynder got her jewelry back, which she hadn't had prior to being frozen in time in The Eternal Night. She was meant to put the jewelry back on in a cutscene as a subtle way of reminding herself of her past misdeeds and facing her fears of becoming Malefor’s pawn again. However, there wasn't enough time nor budget to create this cutscene.
  • There are also numerous comedic moments with Sparx, Volteer, etc. that were planned and in some cases even recorded, but the development team didn't have the resources or time to animate them.
  • Released game storyboards reveal that more additional scenes and character details were planned but didn't make it in the final version of the game.
• Franchise Killer: Dawn of the Dragon failed to meet Sierra's sales expectations, which, along with the Activision Blizzard merger in July 2008 and Sierra's eventual shutdown the following month, killed off both the main series' and Legends' prospects for future games until the release of Spyro Reignited Trilogy around a decade later.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Sparx's actor changes from Billy West to Wayne Brady.
  • Cynder's actress changes from Mae Whitman to Christina Ricci.
• Studio Hop: While the first two games were developed by Krome Studios, this game was instead developed by Étranges Libellules.
• Troubled Production: Sierra and Étranges Libellules worked restless nights to get the game done during the midst of the 2008 company merger between Vivendi Games and Activision. A September 2022 interview with former members of Étranges Libellules revealed that Dawn of the Dragon had only a year and a half to finish. Lead animator Cédric Lavanche remembered he had only three months of experience before being appointed as lead animator. A few junior members were also on the team, and animating the dragons with their wings and long tails was a challenge for them, which explains why the dragon characters in the game had stiff movements.
  • According to a former artist, the game engine for the console versions of Dawn of the Dragon was too old to display normal maps correctly, so the team decided to boost glossiness and covered the whole game in an orange bloom, which made the already broken game render look oily and ugly. As a result, the game textures, including those for the characters, had to be changed to stand out more in the bloom. Like most games developed by Étranges Libellules, Dawn of the Dragon didn't have an art director, so the studio manager of the company made the decisions for the art direction of the game, which included the character designs being inconsistent with the ones established in The Eternal Night (the notorious change being Cynder's change in scale color from black to dark purple). Other decisions included unnecessary technical choices that frustrated and demotivated the development team.

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