Skylanders Imaginators.jpg

The Skylanders franchise kickstarted the toys-to-life craze, which prompted rivals to emerge. Disney Infinity started well but faded to cancellation, however, though LEGO Dimensions is still adding various waves to its original release. Nintendo's own amiibo range is an alternative take on the model, of course, and despite modest sales over the last nine months remains relatively prominent in key upcoming releases.

As for Skylanders, though, Activision has confirmed the game series is sitting out 2017, with no new entry on the way this year. Skylanders Imaginators is going to be there on day one (3rd March) for the Nintendo Switch, but that's a port surprisingly missing support for Traps and vehicles, two types of toys from previous entries in the series.

The IP's focus for the year will apparently be new toys and 'digital content', which could mean phone apps or various other smaller releases - the Skylanders Academy animated show is also returning to Netflix in 2018.

The series certainly isn't dead, then, but it has somewhat lost its lustre after a number of years churning out annual releases and new ranges of toys. It'll be interesting to see what sort of Skylanders game we see, if any, in 2018.

[source kotaku.com]