At events across the world in many countries Activision drew back the curtain on the new Skylanders Trap Team game.
Now in its fourth iteration Skylanders had a lot to do. With Trap Team there is certainly a lot of innovation on the table. Perhaps the biggest danger is that it's got too complicated.
The biggest change is the new portal that lets players trap enemies in special electronic Traps and then turn them into player characters -- yes, even Chaos himself. There are also a new set of Trap Master characters with special upgradeable weapons.
Although you will need to buy a new Portal the game happily supports all 175 of the Skylanders toys from previous games. For families this offers strong value as purchasing just the Starter Pack should enable them to see a large proportion of the game.
Just after the event I caught Jeff Poffenbarger, Executive Producer on the game to talk me through Skylanders Trap Team:
Once back in the office (the UK event being held on Tuesday) I took some time to check through the implications of the various innovations, characters and numbers of figures I'd been told about. While there was a lot to sift through there are some positive headlines.
Best of all for me is the ability to trap enemy characters and use them as new upgradable team members. This is not only a novel innovation but it also allows access to new characters for the first time without needing to buy a related toy (provided you have the appropriate Trap key handy).
It was also a good chance to look at all the assets and information for the Trap Team Starter Pack, which is looking rather nice -- even if we don't have a price yet.
Skylanders Trap Team launches on 360, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, PS3 and PS4 on 10th Oct in the UK and on the 5th in the US.