Love it or loathe it, the Toys to Life genre is here to stay. What started with Activision’s Skylanders has since been adopted by various companies and franchises, from Pokémon to LEGO. These games involve placing figures with special NFC tags onto a reader of some kind (usually stylised as a portal) in order to bring content into the game. Disney Infinity is one such game which began by mashing up various Disney and Pixar franchises, with toys activating characters and game worlds. Its second instalment brought Marvel Superheroes into the fold, with the likes of Spider-Man and the Hulk. Now Disney Infinity 3.0 is set to release next month, and while Disney and Marvel franchises will return, the big focus this time will be on Star Wars – with game worlds based on the Original Trilogy, the Clone Wars TV show, and the upcoming Episode VII.
“I think what’s really cool about [Infinity] is you actually get a physical collectible that you get to keep,” explains the game’s producer, Mathew Solie. “I think that’s one of the things that’s a very distinctive factor for us, we specifically try to make sure that not only do you get a cool game, but you get a cool toy collectible. I can show these off and people are like ‘Wow, this is really cool!’ and then I say ‘Yeah, these actually work in the game!’ ‘Whaaaaat?’ But yeah, I think that’s something that’s really unique to the Toys to Life group, is that if you’re a Star Wars fan you can collect these cool figures. I know a lot of Marvel fans when we did 2.0 said ‘I absolutely love these figures, they’re just super detailed-looking’, and people would sometimes just collect the toys themselves, which is very unique comparatively.”
And the figures certainly do look good – they’re bright and colourful, and manage to capture the personality of the characters they represent. The figurines of the emotions from Pixar’s Inside Out look like they were plucked right from a still-frame from the movie. My favourite figure, however, was the Hulkbuster, Iron Man’s powerful super suit designed to be able to combat The Hulk. It’s a chunky, but detailed, figurine that towers over the others. “He barely fits in the packaging by a millimetre,” Mat says.
My hands-on session began with a look at the Rise Against The Empire playset. This is a pack purchased separately from the main game that gives you Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia figurines, as well as a special playset piece that unlocks the original Star Wars trilogy content. You’ll be able to undertake missions that play out a slightly altered version of the story of the films (whether Han shoots first or not is yet to be seen), and you can also roam freely around different locations from the films. “In every Star Wars playset we have four main planets you can go to, and we have 12-16 little moons and asteroid belts you can fly to to do mini-missions and side quests”. The planets focused on in this playset are Tatooine, Yavin, Hoth, and Endor, but my playtime was spent on some structured missions in the game.
We accessed these missions through the new Mission Replay feature, which was something that was noticeably absent from previous games. If you bought new figurines later down the line, you didn’t have missions to play through with them, so this is a very welcome addition. The first mission I played was the iconic trench run from A New Hope, where Luke Skywalker (or in this case, any Star Wars character you’re playing as) blows up the gigantic Death Star space station. Mat said that Starfox was a big inspiration for this section, and you can see the similarities. The scene is played as an on-rails shooter, and you’re tasked with staying alive long enough to fire the fateful torpedo into the Death Star’s ventilation shaft. It’s much better designed than the on-rails sections of 2.0 – there’s actually a threat of loss for one. I came quite close to losing in some of the harder sections towards the end. Additionally, the player is made more involved in the action, it’s not just mashing the fire button while aiming at enemies that rarely hit you. Each section of the mission is prefaced with an instruction like ‘Dodge’ or ‘Shoot’ that defines the goal for that part. As you fly around the Death Star you’ll be performing actions like destroying turrets, weaving through structures, and guarding wingmen from enemy ships. Then right before the end, none other than Darth Vader himself will start hunting you down in his own personal ship. The variety and spectacle makes for a more exciting mission than you’d think upon hearing it’s on-rails.
The ship controls felt good and allow you to pull off manoeuvres like barrel rolls and banking. There were some sections toward the end where I wasn’t sure if the ship was manoeuvrable enough to navigate unscathed, but it was my first time with the controls so keep that in mind. I still managed to earn a good mission rating though – your performance in each section is rated, adding up to an overall ranking at the end. This is designed to make the difficulty suit all kinds of gamers – kids will be able to get through the game without too much trouble, while more experienced players can aim to achieve the best rating on each mission.
These ship mechanics carry on over to the rest of the playset, as you’ll be able to fly through space to reach each of the main planets and smaller side areas. Mat said that this was something that was decided upon early on. “When we first started talking about Star Wars we said ‘We HAVE to be able to fly off the planet! We’ll do ship to ship combat and fly around the planet-‘ and the Avalanche [Software] guys were like ‘I like the cut of your jib’ [laughs]” It was approached like a space version of the Pirates of the Caribbean playset from the original Disney Infinity. Apparently the tech designers thought the team were crazy for aiming for something like this, so they were excited to pull it off.
The next mission I played was called ‘AT-AT Takedown’ which was set during the Imperial’s attack on Echo Base. The icy planet of Hoth was reminiscent of the movies, and it’s exciting to be able to set foot in these locations from my childhood. In this mission you have to destroy AT-ATs on foot and in a snowspeeder before they destroy the base. “This [playset] is vehicle-based, so we wanted to make sure we hit all those major vehicle points – Speeder bikes, are they awesome? Check. AT-ATs? Yep.” You have to approach the first AT-AT on foot, destroy the casing on its legs, and climb up to its roof. Then in order to take it out, you have to remove the batteries. Yep, they’re really playing up the toy theme here. I used to play with Star Wars toys all the time as a kid, so this evoked a sense of nostalgia and connection to the toys that I hadn’t felt in previous Infinity games. In order to survive you need to jump over shockwaves caused by the AT-ATs stomping, and fight off Snowtroopers trying to fight you off.
In the earlier Infinity games, playsets were locked to the series of characters that the world belonged to – Jack Sparrow couldn’t sail into Radiator Springs, for instance. 2.0 loosened this up a little by introducing Crossover Coins (collectibles with a character’s head on them that would allow that character to join the playset, and unlocked exclusive missions). It didn’t allow everyone to go everywhere, but it meant it was possible to have crossovers like Iron Man flying to Knowhere to assist the Guardians of the Galaxy. In 3.0 the restrictions are looser still, allowing you to play as any Star Wars character in any Star Wars playset. So you could have Anakin Skywalker fight Darth Vader in an incredibly deep and symbolic self-conflict. You still need to collect coins (now dubbed Champion Coins), but there’s only one per character, and Mat says they’re designed to be much easier to find than those in 2.0.
The villain characters will also require their coins to be collected before you can use them in their own playset. “What happened in playtesting, was kids would always put down Darth Maul first, and [the beginning of the Clone Wars playset] plays a cutscene where Yoda, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka Tano, and Anakin are standing there, and they would always say ‘Well where’s Darth Maul?’ and you know, he wouldn’t need to be there – it’s the Jedi and the Clone Army. But they’d just say ‘…I don’t get it’, so we made [Maul’s Champion Coin] a little further along. Same thing with Vader and Boba Fett in Rise Against the Empire, because it would just be weird considering I put Vader down and then the opening has everyone running to escape Vader.” You can use the replay function to play as them in any missions they missed though.
I also got a brief look at the Twilight of the Republic playset (included in the Starter Set along with Anakin and Ahsoka), which features an original story set during the Clone Wars. Mat took over the controls in order to show off the intricacies of the combat, gleefully exclaiming “Lemme put [the difficulty] on Extreme, and I can show you some awesome pause combos”. The developer Ninja Theory helped beef up the combat for this instalment. Inputting attack commands with different timings triggers different attacks. Most characters share the same combo inputs, with different attacks and effects being triggered, but some characters (like ones that use blasters instead of melee weapons) have some different combo inputs to learn.
The combat is much better to watch and to play this time around. On lower difficulties kids will be able to just button mash, but on harder difficulties you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of combat to survive. There’s a lot of personal touches to each character as well, like their finishing moves. These are similar to 2.0‘s special moves, but can be triggered whenever you finish a combo string. Ahsoka Tano lifts enemies with the Force and slams them into the ground. Anakin pulls enemies in and forces them outwards with a shockwave. Yoda “goes full Zen” and smashes enemies into each other, while Obi-Wan uses Jedi Mind Trick to turn enemies against each other. The battle droids ran away from Mat’s flashy combos, and he said they have unique dialogue depending on who they’re fighting.
I chose Ahsoka to be played in this playset, because I liked her in the show and wanted to see her dual lightsaber style in action. Lightsaber combat is the focus of this playset, and you’ll come up against squads of droids and other enemies that allow you to best show off your powers. Levels in this playset take place upon the backdrop of a larger conflict. While you won’t see massive Clone Army vs. Droid Army skirmishes, you’ll be frequently reminded of the battle at large, with Star Destroyers looming overhead, and ships colliding with the landscape mid-dogfight. But outside of missions you’ll still be able to roam the planets and stars like in the original trilogy playset, with Geonosis, Tatooine, Naboo, and Coruscant available to explore.
In addition to the Original Trilogy and Clone Wars content, there’s four characters from Star Wars Rebels you can play as in the playsets and the Toy Box mode, and there’ll also be a playset based on the upcoming Episode VII. Good luck getting information on that though – details are under a tight lock and key! “It exists. Same thing with the Marvel playset – it exists. It’s being done by United Front, and that’s about all I can say. So as you can see from everything we’ve put together, with Twilight of the Republic it’s all lightsabers and Force powers, and then Inside Out is like a 2D platformer, and then crazy vehicle stuff [in Rise Against The Empire], and so United Front Games are going to be doing a totally unique playset”. Mat doesn’t know anything about Episode VII itself, because the playset testing was done in a secure room. “For the first time ever I’ll be surprised when I see a gigantic blockbuster!”
Disney Infinity 3.0 launches September 3rd in Australia, on Wii U and non-Nintendo platforms. Make sure to check back over the next few days for the rest of our hands-on coverage!
