Skylanders is more successful than you thought, as the House of Mouse announced its competing collectible character toy-based game, Disney Infinity, at a media event in LA earlier today. Like Activision-Blizzard’s action-platformer, Infinity will be compatible with a new range of character figurines from various Disney and Pixar films, which activate in-game avatar versions of the figurines, along with their own movie/TV-based stages. Releasing this June, figurines will not only include the likes of Jack Skellington and Lightning McQueen, but also television favorites like Phineas and Ferb.
17 total characters will come bundled in the core game, with Sully from ‘Monster’s University’, Jack Sparrow, and Mr. Incredible being packaged in with the toy-reading platform and act as the $75 starter package. Described as a half action-platformer, half-Minecraft, Infinity‘s “Toy Box” mode – an expanded version of what we saw in the Toy Story 3 game – will act as a blank canvas for all of the player’s unlocked characters, stages and items. Outside of the Toy Box, character figurines are confined to their separate universe-based stages.
“We are going to allow this place that’s kind of like your living room floor,” described John Blackburn, Disney VP and GM of Infinity dev Avalanche Studios, described to Wired prior to Tuesday’s announcement. “We’re not going to go into [your living room] and tell you how to play with your toys, and that’s the same thing here. We give you a bunch of toys and say, here, go play.”
In addition to the character figurines being rolled out following Infinity‘s launch, Disney will also sell “power discs”. Basically a piece of plastic containing RFID chips, “power discs” will offer new in-game items or character-based ability upgrades (e.g. a ‘Wreck-It Ralph’-styled strength boost). These “discs” will be sold separately in blind two-packs, somewhat similar to trading cards, for $5 each.
“We’re kind of launching a five-year plan,” Blackburn explains, “We’ve got a lot of our best properties from Disney that you’re going to see over the course of a year.”
Disney Infinity will launch on 3DS, PC, PS3, Wii, Wii U, and Xbox 360 this June. An iOS companion app that allows players to level up their purchased characters – via included web codes – will also release the same month.
(via Wired)