Which 2002 game was the first mainline Spyro installment not developed by Insomniac Games?

The first mainline Spyro game not developed by Insomniac Games was Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, released in 2002. It followed Insomniac’s original PlayStation trilogy: Spyro the Dragon (1998), Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage! (1999), and Spyro: Year of the Dragon (2000).

After Year of the Dragon, Insomniac moved on from the franchise and began developing Ratchet & Clank. Universal Interactive instead hired Equinoxe Digital Entertainment and Check Six Studios to create Enter the Dragonfly for PlayStation 2 and GameCube. The game’s plot has Ripto disrupting a dragon rite of passage and scattering the dragonflies that young dragons are meant to receive as companions.

A common mix-up is Spyro: Season of Ice, released in 2001 for Game Boy Advance. Season of Ice was the first Spyro game outside Insomniac’s development, but it was a handheld spin-off rather than a mainline console installment. Enter the Dragonfly is therefore the correct answer to this wording. Its troubled production, technical problems, and rushed release also made it a notable turning point in the series’ development history.