Spyro is breathing fire again in 'Skylanders'

By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

Activision is bringing back to life a kids' franchise of the past — Spyro the Dragon — with a touch of augmented reality.

New video game Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, based on the character from the original PlayStation days, is due this fall. And the publisher of the far-more-adult Call of Duty is targeting ages 6 to 12 with a line of action figures starring more than 30 characters from the game. When the game is running, players can put an action figure on a plastic "portal" or stand and watch the toys appear on their TV, and the toy becomes a moving character in the game for the player to control.

"These are toys with brains," says Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, which unveils the game and toys today in New York for next week's annual Toy Fair. The combination brings together "the imagination that toys have always unleashed with kids, and the imaginary world of a video game."

To help create the world of Skyland where Spyro and fellow characters live, Activision has enlisted Hollywood talent, including Shrek character designer Tom Hester, screenwriters Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen (Toy Story) and composer Hans Zimmer (Inception).

"It's got a whole universe of characters and an incredible backstory and a number of different ways to interact with it," Hirshberg says. "Usually franchises take years to develop the kind of universe that we will have Day 1."

Taking a page out of Nintendo's Pokémon playbook, Skylanders endows Spyro and each of the other 31 characters with different abilities and powers (Spyro's include fire breath and horn charge). Pricing for individual toys has not been set, but a $70 starter pack will include the video game, three toys, portal and trading cards. Activision plans to release the game for multiple systems as well as computers, handhelds and phones.

Once a character's toy is put on the portal and enters the game, as a player collects gold or levels-up his character or upgrades a weapon, that character's improved abilities are saved in the toy's memory. Players can take their toy to a friend's house and, when the character is transported into that game, all of its attributes are available.

Children's Technology Review editor Warren Buckleitner expects to see several examples of augmented reality coming to the toy market. But makers must be careful in assimilating technology, he says. "Many times it can distract or water down the experience," Buckleitner says. "It's really an art form."

With Skylanders, Activision hopes to build on the appeal of Spyro, who has sold about 20 million games since his original release in 1998.

"We definitely wanted to take Spyro to next level," Hirshberg says. "But when you see the lineup of toys together, you will understand this has gone way beyond Spyro. This has become an ensemble cast."