Activision Announces New Spyro The Dragon Title

By Michelle Balsan,
Lately, there's been quite a bit of bad news coming out from Activision. Today, however, the publisher announced that a new title is on the way. Skylanders Spyro's Adventure, a new title in the Spyro the Dragon franchise, is being developed by Toys For Bob, whose most recent published project was Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Skylanders Spyro's Adventure is poised to bring a unique experience to games by combining its toy line with the game itself. By utilizing the "Portal of Power", gamers will be able to transport their real-world toys into the virtual environment of the game. It's not really clear how exactly these toys will work, but Activision promises that they will be compatible with a wide variety of consoles, mobile, and web products, so you won't need to worry about buying the toy which matches your gaming platform of choice.

Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, shared a statement as to the thinking behind the technology being used for Skylanders Spyro's Adventure:

These are more than action figures. They are inter-action figures. By pairing world class character design, world class video game design and world class story telling into one entertainment experience, we've given players a whole new genre that bridges the gap between the real and virtual worlds. From the first time a kid picked up a stick and pretended it was a sword, toys have unlocked kids' imaginations. And how often have you wanted to bring those toys to life, to see them become animated and take them on an adventure? Skylanders Spyro's Adventure does just that.
Gamers will be taking on the role of the Portal Master, who can control over 30 different characters, including Spyro. Each character hails from a different home world, but has been forcibly removed from that world by the evil Portal Master known as Kaos and now find themselves existing in our world as toys. It then becomes your job to get the characters back to their virtual world. To further bolster the title, Activision brought in two of the Academy Award nominated writers of the original Toy Story movie, Alek Sokolow and Joel Cohen to write the game's story.

Several other details about the game were released:

* Each Character Has its Own Unique Powers – In addition to the highly collectible design and personalities of the toys themselves, each character has different powers and abilities, opening different experiences inside the game. Players can drop in and out of each level with as many different characters as they like, making each players experience unique.
* Toys With Brains – Each toy/character remembers the player's shared experiences. Achievements and leveled up capabilities earned in the game are embedded inside the toy and travel with the toy. Wherever the toy goes, its experiences go with it.
* Portal of Power – The Portal of Power serves as the gateway between our world and the amazing world of the characters in Skylanders Spyro's Adventure.
* Play With Friends – By placing two characters on the Portal of Power at once, players can team up together for cooperative play, or face off in player versus player battle arenas utilizing their leveled up characters.
* Diverse Experiences on Diverse Devices – While the toys can be used with gaming consoles to play the disc based game, completely different gaming experiences await them on the mobile app and inside the Web World, each of which were designed specifically for those platforms. The result is a remarkable number of different gaming experiences in one game.


No specific release date was made available, though Toys 'R' Us will begin stocking the toys which will be used with the title this fall. For those of you interested in being amongst the first to see this concept in action, Activision will be showing off Skylanders Spyro's Adventure at the American International Toy Fair taking place from February 13th-16th in New York City.
Michelle Balsan
Written by Michelle Balsan
Michelle is the Assistant Manager of the Newshounds at TrueAchievements and has been a member of staff since 2010. When not contributing to gaming websites, she makes her living as a mild-mannered librarian. She can be compelled to play just about anything if there's a co-op component, and has been playing games with friends and siblings since the Atari 2600. As it's reportedly healthy to have hobbies outside of gaming, she also roots for some of the most difficult sporting franchises to root for, the New York Mets and New York Jets, but offsets that by rooting for the New Jersey Devils. She's also seen pretty much none of the movies you have, but she's working on that.
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