Backward-compatible Swap Force lets gamers swap the top and bottom halves of real-world toys to make new characters.

Activision today announced Skylanders Swap Force, the next entry in the company's $500 million "toys-to-life" franchise. In development at Vicarious Visions (Guitar Hero, Transformers), the game allows players to swap the top and bottom halves of their toys to create new characters.

Sixteen Swap Force characters will be made available at launch, for a total of more than 250 combinations. The game is also backward-compatible, allowing players to use their collection of toys from Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders: Giants.

Activision's official announcement today of Skylanders Swap Force did not share any release window or platform information, but Activision community manager Dan Amrich said the game is in development at Vicarious Visions for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U for release this fall. n-Space is handling the 3DS version, while Beenox is heading up development on the Wii iteration.

Series creator Toys For Bob is "very much involved" in the franchise but is not working on Swap Force, Amrich said.

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