Skylanders has come to dominate the New York toy fair announcement. At an event before this year’s show, Activision gave an early peek of Skylanders Swap Force. This is a new game from a new developer with a new portal peripheral and 42 new figures. I sat down with Studio Head Guha Bala to talk about the game in detail.
Skylanders Swap Force introduces innovations this year that create different ways to play with the physical toys as well as new ways to play in-game. The 16 Swap Force characters have interchangeable torsos and legs that can be snapped together to create your own custom Skylanders. If you owned all the figures that would be 256 combinations.
Here are the headlines about Skylanders Swap Force:
- 16 Swap Force Skylanders including Magna-Charge (Tech), Wash-Buckler (Water) and Blast-Zone (Fire).
- 16 new core Skylanders including Rollerbrawl (Undead) and Countdown (Fire).
- 16 Series 3 Returning Skylanders including Eruptor and Stealth Elf.
- 8 new Lightcore Skylanders.
- 8 new Swap Force areas, equivalent of Elemental Zones but with more varied play.
- 1 new Portal.
The bad news in that list is the requirement to buy a new portal. I asked Guha Bala, Studio Lead for Skylanders Swap Force, why we couldn’t use our existing portals for Swap Force. “Our commitment is that every time we release there’s a new level of magic in both the toys and the game so we need to upgrade the portal which will support all the new and old toys.”
I was also a little surprised that, despite the introduction of jumping, there is still only two player local co-operative play — particularly when Disney Infinity has four player online. Bala explained his thinking here. “The co-op play is local which reflects our demographic. What we find is that this is about children playing with each other rather than anonymous people online. This is very much a living room experience.”
This is certainly a good point. And with the Swap Force mechanic giving the physical toys a semi-articulated feel the possibilities for off-console play are much greater too. You can even attach two leg parts together to create your own comical Skylanders Swap Force mutants — although they won’t be recognized by the game.
Skylanders Swap Force
There is actually quite a lot of fun going through the various combinations of the Swap Force figures to see how the game renders them on screen. Some look really good, while others are a little odd and some are simply hysterical.
The game itself looks sharper this year with various aspects of the visuals obviously benefiting from some extra attention. This attention came in the form of a new developer, Vicarious Visions. They were responsible for the 3DS version of Spyro’s Adventure and Wii U version of Giants, not to mention the recent mobile versions.
Vicarious Visions Studio Head, Guha Bala, explained that they were also responsible for the engine that has powered all the different versions of Skylanders so far. Looking at the new game it certainly seems that they know how to squeeze every last drop of fidelity out of it.
With so many new Skylanders being created from scratch (16 Swap Force and 16 new core Skylanders) I was interested to hear how Vicarious Visions worked with creatives at Toys for Bob on the project. It seems that there is plenty of back and forth between the studios.
At the preview event I had some time with the following new Swap Force characters, and I have to say I liked the way they looked and felt to hold. The Swap mechanic had a positive feel to it with the magnets keeping everything in place securely. It did make me wonder whether the new figures were still bath-friendly though.
Magna-Charge – Tech Skylander
Skylanders Swap Force – Magna Charge
He has a big magnet on his top (Magna) half that gives him the ability to pick up objects and enemies and then throw them around. A little like a cross between a Treerex and Jet-Vac. He also has a Gatling Gun attack. On his lower (Charge) half he has a speed wheel that makes him one of the fastest Skylanders I’ve seen — complete with a charge attack.
Wash-Buckler – Water Skylander
Skylanders Swap Force: Wash Buckler
This is an octopus pirate character — a combination I was rather keen on. The top (Buckler) half has both a Cutlass and Bubble-gun attack. This means that you can encase enemies in bubbles before dispatching them. The lower (Wash) half has Tentacles that can attack and climb. This is quite a slow character — unless you swap the base for a faster ability of course.
Blast-Zone – Fire Skylander
This is a fire character that has rocket boots on his lower (Zone) half. This gives him a charge attack and makes him quite fast. His top (Blast) half offers rocket attacks that seemed as powerful as Bouncer but more direct-able without upgrading him.
These three figures can then be mixed and matched. As you can see they each have names in two halves which enables you to name any resulting combinations. Nine combos are possible with above three figures: Magna Charge, Magna Buckler, Magna Zone, Wash Charge, Wash Buckler, Wash Zone, Blast Charge, Blast Zone, Blast Buckler, Blast Zone.
Skylanders Swap Force: Countdown
In addition to these it seems that Stealth Elf and Eruptor will be getting a Series 3 release as well as two newcomers in the form of Rollerbrawl and Countdown.
Skylanders Swap Force will be available for Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, with a Wii version being developed by Beenox and a 3DS version by n-Space.
I will report back with more details as I get them.
