Disney today held a press conference in Hollywood to reveal to the world its latest project, Disney Infinity. The game is a multiplayer, multi-platform, multi-franchise title that brings together the most iconic of Disney’s characters and chucks them into one interactive, sandbox experience. Disney Infinity is set to release sometime in June, and a countdown on its website indicates that it may be released on June 1.
Disney’s Co-President John Pleasants first took to the stage to tell us that the game will include essentially two types of experiences: the Property Worlds Play Set, in which an environment from a franchise like Toy Story would only allow for Toy Story characters to play on it during missions; and the Toy Box, which allows players to use any available character in any existing game, or in ones that the player has created. Watch Davy Jones pop-a-wheelie off of a building in the entertaining announcement trailer below.
CCO at Walt Disney, John Lasseter, also appeared onstage, donning his Wreck-It Ralph T-shirt, and mentioned that the game would play similarly to Toy Story 3: The Video Game, as the idea to develop such an open-world, crossover game essentially came from Avalanche Software. Disney Infinity also shares similarities with Activision’s Skylanders, as physical figurines and Play Set pieces are set on an included Infinity Base device to integrate characters and items into the game. Game experience and collected items are saved into the pieces rather than on an internal memory card, and in-game characters can be upgraded using Power Discs, 20 of which will be available when the game launches, and more to come throughout the year.
The included starter pack will include 3 Property Worlds Play Sets, each of which will feature its own set of missions and campaigns true to that franchise's universe: Monsters University, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Incredibles, as well as their three figurines, Sully, Jack Sparrow, and Mr. Incredible, respectively.
The multiplayer aspect of the game will feature a two-player split screen, as well as 4-player in online, “drop-in, drop-out network play,” said Avalanche’s VP and General Manager, John Blackburn. The game also contains a multitude of other fun features, from TP’ing buildings and statues with a Toilet Paper Launcher that can be used while simultaneously riding a horse, to constructing a frat house or your own ship and crew with a friend, to essentially recreating the worlds in the imagination of Toy Story's Andy. A user has even built Bowser's Castle from scratch and raced around the track at the correct frame rate.
In development by the talented devs at Avalanche Software, Pixar Studios, Disney Interactive, Disney Infinity looks to be a game with an almost limitless amount of activities, and its name suits it well. Infinity will be available on the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, PC, and mobile platforms, this summer, in June 2013.
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