Disney closes in for the kill with Star Wars: Rise Against the Empire play set for Infinity 3.0

Disney is unveiling its second Star Wars game for the Disney Infinity 3.0 “toys-to-life” video game platform today.

The Star Wars: Rise Against the Empire “play set” is one of a trio of cartoon-style Star Wars games that go with the family-friendly Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition toy-game platform that is coming later this year. The game is part of a larger Disney strategy to capture the minds of kids, and it shows Disney is serious about raising the stakes of competition with rivals that include Nintendo’s Amiibo, Warner’s Lego Dimensions, Activision’s Skylanders, and Rovio’s Angry Birds. All of those companies are going to put the squeeze on parents as their kids are going to want all of them.

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As we noted with the previous announcement of Star Wars: Twilight of the Republic play set, the toy-game hybrid category, dubbed “toys to life,” has generated $4 billion since 2011. A recent survey said that parents spent an average of $131 over the last six months on such products. GamesBeat got a hands-on preview and had some interviews with Disney leaders at a recent event. Disney is also releasing a new trailer depicting the Rise Against the Empire play set today.

This toys-to-life category is crowded. But Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, told us, “I agree that the toys to life category is crowded, but as a practical matter, these are toys, and bringing them to life should take share from conventional toys, so there is still a lot of room to accommodate all of the new franchises.”

And as franchises go, you can’t do better than Star Wars.

Disney Infinity 3.0

Star Wars: Rise Against the Empire debuts this fall as part of the third edition of Disney Infinity, which started appearing in 2013. The second Disney Infinity appeared last year with Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes. And now, finally, Disney is wrapping it all up with Disney Infinity 3.0. The cool thing with Infinity 3.0 is you’ll be able to go off story and mix and match the characters from Pixar, Disney, Marvel, and Lucas properties in the ultimate mash-up.

“We’ve got ambitious goals, including bringing all of these great brands together in Disney Infinity 3.0, ” said John Blackburn, the head of Disney’s Avalanche Software, the maker of the Infinity series.

With the latest version of Infinity, players can play an animated game on their consoles or other platforms and then use toys connected to a portal to interact or switch characters within the game. Each time Disney Interactive comes out with a new play set, that is the equivalent of a 10-hour game. The art style takes advantage of the 3D graphics of the new consoles, but it is rendered in a cartoon look that could appeal to both kids and adults.

That distinction is important as Electronic Arts is likely to launch its Star Wars: Battlefront video game this year, and that title will have highly realistic 3D graphics that push consoles and PCs to the limit. By having its partners release different kinds of games, Disney can satisfy the total demand in the market this year for all things Star Wars as it tees up the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens film in the fall. But it doesn’t have to worry that each game will cannibalize the other.

The cartoon style of the Disney Infinity Star Wars titles has been proven to be appealing to all ages in the past. Lego Star Wars: The Video Game launched in 2005, and it sold millions of copies worldwide. Altogether, Lego and TT Games sold more than 21 million copies, proving that parents playing games with their kids was a huge market opportunity. The cartoon look is working again for Disney Infinity, which has been able to hold the attention of players with one cartoon-like play set after another.

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A year of Star Wars

Blackburn said the upcoming film is a “wonderful window” of opportunity for Disney to introduce all sorts of nostalgic Star Wars revivals.

Ada Duan, the vice president of Lucasfilm digital business and franchise management at Disney, said it was important to create an authentic Star Wars experience on Infinity because games are often the first way that kids experience Star Wars for the first time.

“We also know Star Wars is a multi-generational property,” she said. “We often see parents introducing their children to Star Wars in multiple formats, beyond the films.”

She said the original vision for a complete experience emphasized ease of access for all ages, lightsaber combat, multiple environments, and space combat.

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To create all of its play sets and features for Disney Infinity 3.0 — including the three Star Wars play sets — Disney enlisted the help of eight major game studios, said John Vignocchi, the vice president of production at Disney Interactive. That tells you how big an investment the company making into its year full of Star Wars and the Infinity series. These developers are key to making deep games that are interesting to both kids and die-hard adult fans of Star Wars.

“Often, you would not see these developers in the kids and family space,” Blackburn said. “But parents want to play with their kids, and that is primarily why we have done this.”

Rise Against the Empire

You’ll be able to get the Disney Infinity 3.0 platform on the PC and a variety of video game console platforms. The free form mode of the game, known as Toy Box, is a key part of the game that allows kids and adults to use their own imagination and create their own game worlds. But the play sets are also important for those who want a narrated, full experience of a video game with a consistent, immersive story, Blackburn said.

The Star Wars: Twilight of the Republic play set fits into the fight between The Old Republic and droid armies of the Separatists, with events and characters from The Phantom Menace to Revenge of the Sith in Episodes I through III of the Star Wars films, as well as The Clone Wars animated show. Ninja Theory is making it. The lightsaber combat made the studio — known for action-heavy games like DmC: Devil May Cry and Heavenly Sword — an ideal developer for the play set, Blackburn said.

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With Star Wars: Rise Against the Empire, the play set covers the Episodes IV through VI, which include the original Star Wars movie, Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi. Environments will cover places like the planets Hoth, Tatooine, and Endor. The play set mixes both a narrated experience and a feeling that it’s an open world style game, where you can go anywhere in the galaxy.

Interestingly, Disney’s leaders on the project figured out they had to change the developers on the play sets.

“We ended up talking to everyone and realized that it didn’t make sense to have Ninja Theory on Episode IV through VI, because all the Jedi lightsaber stuff happens in I through III,” Blackburn said. “Then all the vehicle stuff – a lot of the vehicles that are really iconic, that people know — is in IV through VI. So we ended up swapping [developers on] play sets.”

Disney chose to tap the skills of Studio Gobo, which has established a reputation for being good at creating vehicular-combat games. (It was founded by members of Black Rock Sutdio, maker of racing games like Pure and Split/Second, after Black Rock shut down in 2011). That’s the hallmark of a lot of action of the films. You can fly or ride vehicles or mounts like Snow Speeders, Tauntauns, Banthas, and the iconic Millennium Falcon. The vehicular competition will take place on the surfaces of planets or in space.

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“Nailing space combat was absolutely critical for us,” Duan said.

You’ll be able to play as Jedi Luke Skywalker, rebel leader Princess Leia Organa, and heroic smuggler Han Solo and his trusty co-pilot Chewbacca — all in an effort to defeat Darth Vader and overthrow the evil Galactic Empire. In action, you’ll use a Snow Speeder to take down a giant Imperial AT-AT Walker on the snow planet of Hoth. You’ll ride a speeder bike through the forest planet of Endor. And you can pilot an X-Wing fighter to bring down the Death Star. And you can engage in some key moments of the films, like escaping from Jabba the Hut.

The game has a new space flight system that is entirely new to Infinity, allowing for full open-world, 360-degree flight.

The game is rated E10+ (rated suitable for anyone 10 and older), and that means it has to be easy enough for a young child to play but difficult enough for parents to enjoy as well.

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Retail strategy

The brilliance of the whole toys-to-life model is that it gets parents spending on not only the main platform but also toys.

The Star Wars: Twilight of the Republic play set comes with the Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Starter Pack, which will retail for the reduced ($10 less) price of $65 in the fall. The play set comes with two character figures and with a web code that unlocks content for PC and mobile devices. It’s worth noting that for $75, you can get a Skylanders: SuperChargers Starter Pack with three toy characters.

In this play set, the toy characters include Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa figures. You can also buy Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader separately to use in the Rise Against the Empire play set. You’ll be able to play with these characters in the enhanced Toy Box, and you’ll also be able to unlock the ability for all Star Wars figures to be played inside of all of the Star Wars play sets.

Disney has yet to describe one additional Star Wars play set that will be available for Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition this holiday: The Force Awakens (based on the new film coming this fall). A play set based on Disney Pixar’s upcoming film Inside Out and a Marvel play set featuring Hulkbuster, Iron Man, Ultron, and other Marvel characters should also be available. Disney plans to reveal more Infinity figures and play sets in the coming months.

Blackburn said that Disney Infinity 3.0 is the final mega-launch of a major Disney franchise on Infinity 3.0. Players will be able to collect a bunch of Star Wars characters and play with them in mixed play in Toy Box, the free-form section of Infinity where players can create their own worlds. For the first time, fans will be able to mix characters from Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel properties.

Conclusion

Disney is delivering a grand strategy with a lot of well-thought pieces to it in Disney Infinity 3.0 and its Star Wars games. The result is going to be a huge amount of player choice as to how to play through the play sets — or just take off into free-form play in the Toy Box.

“The key thing we wanted [is] to deliver a lot of different kinds of experiences,” Vignocchi said.

Star Wars: Rise Against the Empire is certainly very different from the previously announced play set, with gameplay and a narrative that will appeal to different kinds of players. Disney has the potential to capture a wide audience with the cartoon style of its Star Wars play sets, but it will also lose some players who want a more realistic live-action 3D experience. Those players will likely play something like EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront. But Infinity is certainly doing its part to make 2015 into an all-Star-Wars, all-the-time kind of year. And Disney is presenting some formidable competition in the toys-to-life genre.