Skylanders Superchargers Announced

Today Activision announced the fifth game in the Skylanders series: Skylanders Superchargers. The new game will feature land, sea, and air vehicles for Skylanders to pilot during their adventures. There will be a total of 20 new vehicles to collect. These vehicles will transport into the game via the portal just like Skylander figures do. However, unlike Skylanders figures, these vehicles do not have bases, so you can actually play with the vehicles. Hot Streak, which comes with the game, is a car with wheels that actually roll making it a more playable Skylander toy. Even if the vehicles don’t have wheels like Dive Bomber and Sky Slicer they still will have moving parts and be more fun to play with outside of the game.

So I know what you are thinking, “Vehicles? Great now we have even more to buy!” Well, that’s not really true this year. This time around, the character collecting will be more reasonable. There will only be 40 new toys to collect. 20 of them are vehicles and 20 of them are new or returning Skylander figures. That is just two vehicles and two Skylanders per element (yes, light and dark are elements are coming back). Some characters are returning like Super Shot Stealth Elf, while others like Spitfire and Stormblade are brand new.

There is no word yet on how many figures will be returning vs. being brand new, but the returning characters are going to be very different. Super Shot Stealth Elf not only looks different but will also have new skills and powers. There will be no mistaking which game the returning figures belong to.

You might expect that a new portal will be required. Surprisingly it is not. Old portals will work with Skylanders Superchargers. However, the new portal looks pretty cool, and seems a bit bigger which will probably be good for what appears to be larger vehicles. This new portal is slightly larger and shaped like a race track so that you can fit a vehicle and a character on it at the same time. On the downside, villains captured from Trap Team will NOT be playable in Superchargers. However, they will unlock special Skystones for the Skystones mini game.

Each vehicle will have special challenges or races to compete in on various levels. They are like the movement challenges in Swap Force. Rewards found in these challenges can be vehicle mods. You can then install these mods to give your vehicle better stats. It’s sort of like finding a hat for your Skylander but much cooler. Also, if you pair a vehicle with the right Skylander, you will be able to enter a special supercharged mode for even more power. It sounds like there is a lot to look forward to in Superchargers.

When I first heard the rumors of a vehicle based Skylanders game, I was a little skeptical. But now that I’ve watched the trailer and have seen some footage, I am pretty excited. I think it will be a lot of fun, and for my kids, it will probably give them more exposure to racing and flying gameplay which will surely make other games with that kind of gameplay more attractive to play.

I’m also excited that it won’t cost and arm and a leg (hopefully) to buy all of the figures and vehicles. I have not yet seen any pricing on vehicles so I’m assuming they won’t be more expensive than a Swap Force figure. So buckle up and get ready to go on a ride. Skylanders Superchargers will be here before you know it. It will be released on September 20th which I believe is the earliest release of a Skylanders game yet.

For now, check out the reveal trailer below.