For months now, there have been rumors that Disney is developing its own hybrid toy and game franchise, very much in the vein of Activision’s enormously successful Skylanders. For once, the rumors are true. Revealed at an event in Hollywood just this morning, Disney Infinity is that game. Like Skylanders, Infinity
makes use of physical action figures that are “transported” into the
game world via an NFC platform – but there is much more to it than that.
Drawing inspiration from sources like LittleBigPlanet and Minecraft, Disney Infinity offers both crafted gameplay experiences and the opportunity for players to create their own scenarios and worlds. Disney Interactive calls Infinity its “most ambitious gaming initiative ever,” and by all appearances, the description is apt.
Disney Infinity’s technology may be similar to Skylanders (read our Skylanders Giants
review), but its gameplay is another matter entirely. For starters,
there are distinct modes of play, dubbed Play Set and Toy Box. Play Sets
are story-driven experience, each tied to a specific Disney/Pixar
property. At launch this June, three Play Sets will be available: The Incredibles, Monsters University (convenient, considering that the movie hits theaters on June 21st), and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. Just as characters are imported into the game using the Infinity Base (Infinity’s version of Skylanders’ Portal of Power), so too are Play Sets, each stored on a hexagonal, transparent Play Set Piece.
Play Sets are character specific (Disney likes to say “true to property”), meaning, for example, that only Monsters University characters can be used in the Monsters University Play Set. The sets also promise to offer unique gameplay experiences. In Monsters University, Sulley and Mike are tasked with frightening the students at a rival school. On the other hand, Pirates of the Caribbean (which, thankfully, eschews any elements from On Stranger Tides) focuses on exploring the high seas and ship to ship battles, while The Incredibles is something of an open-world beat-em-up.
