Skylanders SWAP Force

Overview

Skylanders Swap Force is the third main game in the Skylanders franchise. The game introduces the Swap Force characters, figurines that can separate at the waist and recombine with any other Swap Force figures to form new characters. The base of each Swap force Skylander has a specific ability, such as digging, climbing, and jumping, which will allow access to otherwise unreachable areas. Kaos makes his return as the games antagonist.

The game requires a new portal to function due to hardware changes in the new Swap Force figurines, but the game is still backwards compatible with previous Skylanders figurines, retaining skills and levels.

Swap Mechanic

The first trailer revealed how the characters can be swapped around to form new characters. For example, Wash Buckler and Blast Zone can be separated and interchanged combining the names and abilities of the parts swapped. The newly formed "Blast Buckler" is now a bomb throwing robot with a squid like bottom half. With 16 characters that can be swapped around, there are a total 256 possible character combinations.

Characters

The game introduces 32 new Skylander characters not seen in previous games. 16 are the new SWAP Force Skylanders, two per element, and 16 are new "core" Skylanders, also two per element.

There are also 16 "Series 2" and "Series 3" Skylanders characters returning from previous games, with all new in-game powers and abilities. Lastly, there will be 8 new LightCore Skylander variations. All figurines released for this game have a blue baseplate to differentiate them from previous figures.

If one includes all the characters released for previous games (and provided one has the figurines), there are a total of 80 different playable characters for the game (not including variants or Swap Force combinations).

Pack-Ins

Standard Starter Pack

• Skylanders Swap Force game & Portal of Power
• Blast Zone figure
• Wash Buckler figure
• Ninja Stealth Elf figure

Like previous iterations in the series, the Nintendo 3DS pack-in figurines differ from the other console versions:

• Free Ranger figure
• Rattle Shake figure
• Volcanic Lava Barf Eruptor figure [Lava Barf Eruptor variant]

GameStop Exclusive "Dark Edition" Starter Pack

• Skylanders Swap Force game & Portal of Power
• Dark Washbuckler figure
• Dark Blast Zone figure
• Dark Slobbertooth figure
• Dark Mega Ram Spyro figure
• Dark Ninja Stealth Elf figure