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Activision unveils new Skylanders

Eddie Makuch
By Eddie Makuch, News Editor

Backward-compatible Swap Force lets gamers swap the top and bottom halves of real-world toys to make new characters.

Activision today announced Skylanders Swap Force, the next entry in the company's $500 million "toys-to-life" franchise. In development at Vicarious Visions (Guitar Hero, Transformers), the game allows players to swap the top and bottom halves of their toys to create new characters.

Sixteen Swap Force characters will be made available at launch, for a total of more than 250 combinations. The game is also backward-compatible, allowing players to use their collection of toys from Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders: Giants.

Activision's official announcement today of Skylanders Swap Force did not share any release window or platform information, but Activision community manager Dan Amrich said the game is in development at Vicarious Visions for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U for release this fall. n-Space is handling the 3DS version, while Beenox is heading up development on the Wii iteration.

Series creator Toys For Bob is "very much involved" in the franchise but is not working on Swap Force, Amrich said.

Eddie Makuch
By Eddie Makuch, News Editor

Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.

30 comments
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interrasteral7
interrasteral7

I have a bad feeling that Vicarius Visions might add Crash Bandicoot in the Skylanders series soon.

GH05T-666
GH05T-666

Who buy's these?

Just kids?

NTenseify
NTenseify like.author.displayName 1 Like

@GH05T-666 Yea my 6 year old nephews love them. It's a clever cash cow for Activision - buy the game and the kids need to have a better collection than their school friends at $20 each figurine

MAXAM999
MAXAM999

Why can't anyone stop this company from milking those stuff .. They just break the limits and they got billions of dollars without doing something that helps the gaming industry .

svaubel
svaubel

Long as it's a fun game. Cant say Im going to spend as much money on Skylanders 3 as I did on the first two

Warhawk613
Warhawk613

Why can't Activision have a separate developer to make a Spyro game that's move towards the  original?  We been waiting for that since after the year 2000.

jokersmile2112
jokersmile2112 like.author.displayName 1 Like

great concepts, wish pokemon would go ahead and make a game like this

craigprime
craigprime

 @jokersmile2112 I'm going to assume you mean the come-to-life thing, not putting together your own character. (shudder)

Ragnarok-64
Ragnarok-64

I've already decided that after I collect all my Giants that I won't be bothering with collecting for the next game, it just feels like they want to milk more and more - I can't take it! It's getting way too expensive!

Yomigaeru
Yomigaeru

While I do love me some Skylanders, this is starting to look like Guitar Hero all over again.

Catering to younger gamers will give it some longevity, but how long do they think they can continue with yearly releases? Is Activision's strategy nowadays primarily centered around a single cash cow franchise for releases until they milk it dry (invariably coming up with one to replace it)?

KBFloYd
KBFloYd

I don't get the hype of these games...I've seen gameplay and it looks boring.

Deadly_Nemesis
Deadly_Nemesis

I've played it, it's pretty boring. The levels are linier characters have 2 actions.

Carpetfluff
Carpetfluff like.author.displayName 1 Like

Disney's version is coming to eat you...

Deadly_Nemesis
Deadly_Nemesis

Doubt it. We all know how these "coming to eat you" games go. They never succeed. Exhibit A >>>.War Fighter, TOR.

Carpetfluff
Carpetfluff

Fundemental difference here being that the demographic here is younger kids and parents / grandpwrents gift buying. Give them the choice between knock off Pokemon lookalikes and characters from every Disney / Pixar franchise to choose from and the money is all going one way. You want proof Activision knows it? Just look at the pic of squid boy who looks just enough like a certain character from Pirates of the Carribbean...  

Jake518
Jake518 like.author.displayName 1 Like

Poor, poor Spyro.

Deadly_Nemesis
Deadly_Nemesis

Ooooh yeah this game did have him in it...kind of. More like a four legged Gremlin in a bad cosplay of Spyro.

Nintyfan95
Nintyfan95 like.author.displayName 1 Like

milkivision doing the usual.

Xx51LLYR4BB1TxX
Xx51LLYR4BB1TxX

The new figures the way there are talking about them dont seem to really interest me this.

nurnberg
nurnberg

This game is taking milking to a whole new level!  Unsurprisingly, it's published by Activision.

mariokart64fan
mariokart64fan

well guess wii isnt dead lol  more games coming for original wii but ill get the wiiu version if i want the game

FallenOneX
FallenOneX

Can you combine a character with a ramp jumping over a shark is the only thing on my mind with this news.....

FAIL_TR0LL
FAIL_TR0LL like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 5 Like

It's okay Activision, you can put the veil back on that. 

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