Development Timeline

Spyro: Year of the Dragon began development shortly after the release of Spyro 2 in November 1999, and ended in September 2000. The production cycle was described by Ted Price as "the smoothest production cycle that we've ever had", with the exception of the final month of development.

A lot is known about Spyro 3's development, owing to its broad array of demo versions, multiple released pre-release builds, leftover data from the earliest points of development, and a wide range of insights directly from developers. Spyro 3 is also somewhat notorious for having some of the most significant known cuts, with soundtrack changes, entire sub-area removals, and one incredibly tall whirlwind being but a few of the more notable things left on the cutting room floor.

Full timeline Playable versions Development versions Demo versions Release versions Misc

December 1999 - February 2000
	Development beginnings From the game's inception to its earliest known data - everything we know about the game's earliest stages.
March 2000 - April 2000
	Pre-E3 Screenshots A series of 28 screenshots, showing one of the earliest known builds of Spyro 3. The screenshots date to on or before March 27th 2000.
	April 25th 2000 Preview A SCEA preview build dating to April 2000, first publicly released during Hidden Palace's Project Deluge on April 17th 2021. Early music, developers swearing, and ravenous tigers - it's all here.
May 2000 - June 2000
	E3 2000 May 11th 2000 Spyro 3's official announcement at E3 2000 in Los Angeles, California.
	Electric Playground Interviews Interviews conducted in May 2000.
	GameSpot Preview An exclusive preview build currently only known to have been played by GameSpot. Dating to roughly May 2000, most of the videos demonstrating this build are now considered lost media.
	Post-E3 Screenshots A slightly later set of screenshots, showing the game as it was in around June 2000. These screenshots have emerged from a range of different sources, but the full extent of these screenshots is not currently known.
	Demo 1 The earliest public demo disc version. Dates to on or after May 25th 2000.
	SCEE Preview A currently unreleased preview build used in European publications. Dating to roughly June 2000, this version is identifiable by the presence of a difficulty debugging display at the top-right of the screen.
July 2000 - August 2000
	Demo 2 The second public demo build, featuring a different array of levels. Dates to roughly July 27th, 2000.
	Demo 3 Similar to Demo 1, but this time it's PAL. Dates to roughly August 2000.
	Demo 4 A slightly later PAL compilation demo. Hunter's changed this shorts, this time.
	Demos 5 and 6 The demo builds included within copies of Crash Bash - Demo 5 being the NTSC-U version, and Demo 6 being a very slightly later PAL version.
	Late Development Screenshots Some unusual press screenshots, showing a late development version of the game used for testing the adaptive difficulty feature.
September 2000 - October 2000
	Prima Guide The build(s) shown in the Prima strategy guide. Seems to be from the same period of development as the review builds.
	September 4th 2000 Review A late build used as a review build by European publications. Features a full soundtrack which was cut in subsequent builds!
	September 11th 2000 Review A very late build, dating to roughly three days before the initial release version. Used as a review build by American publications.
	NTSC-U Revision 0 September 14th 2000 The initial NTSC-U release version. Notorious for its incomplete soundtrack and speedway bug!
	PAL Revision 0 September 29th 2000 The earliest final PAL build. Also includes the dreaded speedway bug.
	PAL Revision 1 October 24th 2000 A PAL revision released to correct some issues, most notably the speedway bug.
	NTSC-U Revision 1 October 31st 2000 Often known as "1.1" or "Greatest Hits", features a larger soundtrack than the initial release version. The final Insomniac Spyro build.