Skylanders Battlecast Putting F2P Card Battle Spin on Franchise Next Year

Activision’s Skylanders franchise remains both popular and profitable. Free-to-play card battle games remain all the rage on mobile, with all kinds of big IPs about to get in on the act. I think you see where this might be headed. …

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Activision’s Skylanders franchise remains both popular and profitable. Free-to-play card battle games remain all the rage on mobile, with all kinds of big IPs about to get in on the act. I think you see where this might be headed.

Indeed, Activision announced today that Skylanders Battlecast, its very own mobile card battle game, is on the way next year. It will feature Skylanders characters in a brand new story that plays out in both a single player campaign and duels against other players. If you’re thinking Hearthstone, you’re probably not alone.

The concept that might help Skylanders Battlecast apart from its competitors (and make Activision Blizzard even more money if it catches on) is that there will be physical cards for sale as well. Those will interact with the camera on your mobile device to somehow bring animations to life, thus staying at least somewhat true to the Skylanders toys-to-life ethos. Has anyone trademarked the phrase “cards-to-life” yet?

A press release for the announcement had one Activision Publishing executive calling the game the company’s “biggest investment” yet on mobile, and since the last Skylanders console game was great on tablets, there’s reason to think this one will be too.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one, which is slated for both iOS and Android sometime in 2016.

[via VentureBeat]

Nick Tylwalk enjoys writing about video games, comic books, pro wrestling and other things where people are often punching each other, regaardless of what that says about him. He prefers MMOs, RPGs, strategy and sports games but can be talked into playing just about anything.