darkSpyro

Introducing the third entry to the Skylanders series: Skylanders: Swap Force. The main new feature that Swap Force brings to the table is the 16 brand new characters that have swappable features.



Each of the sixteen "Swap Force" toys has two parts - the legs and the upper body. The legs control the movement, the upper body decides the attacks. You can take them apart and then mix-and-match the two halves with any of the other Swap Force toys, the game will recognise what you've put together to give you up to 256 different combinations (once you have all 16 of the Swap Force characters).



In terms of new toys, as well as the 16 swappable "Swap Force" characters there are 16 brand new "core" figures, these are new regular Skylanders without the ability to swap parts. There will also be eight LightCore characters and 16 returning "Series 3" characters with new Wow Pows.



Also coming with the game is a brand new, completely redesigned Portal of Power that you will need to get, the old ones will no longer work with Swap Force. But never fear, all of the old characters, both the Orange and Green base varieties, will still be fully functional in Swap Force.



On the developer side of things unlike the last two games Toys for Bob will not be developing Swap Force, instead Vicarious Visions will be taking the mantle (they previously made the 3DS version of Spyro's Adventure, the Wii U version of Giants and all of the iOS games) for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U versions. The previous developer for the 3DS version, n-Space, will be resuming their development role on the 3DS version. And not forgetting the Wii, that's not being abandoned just yet and will be getting a version developed by Beenox.

The Starter Pack will come with two Swap Force characters (it'd not be much fun having only one) as well as a returning character and the brand new Portal of Power. No specific release date has been announced other than "this fall".

For further, more in-depth reading there are plenty of articles popping up all over the web following the press showing of the game, such as Wired, Engadget, Joystiq, Polygon, Giant Bomb, One of Swords, Metro.co.uk.