Today, Disney debuted Disney Infinity Next, a new online video series designed to share upcoming plans for – and a behind-the-scenes look at – Disney Infinity. Below is a blog post from John Blackburn, SVP & GM of Disney Infinity, which outlines the details announced in the video.
This morning, we shared information about our upcoming plans for Disney Infinity in 2016 on Disney Infinity Next – a new online program that will give fans a look at the past, present and future of Disney Infinity, directed in part, by your feedback. It’s the first of several editions we intend to publish throughout the year, and in today’s episode we covered some of Disney Infinity’s highlights from 2015, shared early details on our 2016 content plans and gave a sneak peek at some of the figures and Play Sets launching over the next few months.
The first edition of Disney Infinity Next can be viewed in its entirety on our YouTube channel, but for those of you that want all the news, here are details of what we announced…
2015 – The Force Was Strong with Disney Infinity
Disney Infinity had an amazing 2015 thanks to our incredible fans old and new. The 3.0 Edition welcomed Star Wars™ to Disney Infinity and let us finish setting the stage for the platform. Since the franchise launched in 2013, we’ve always said Disney Infinity was a platform for all things Disney. The inclusion of Star Wars lets Disney Infinity feature stories and characters from the world’s biggest brands across The Walt Disney Company: Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars as it moves forward. We can’t wait to show you what’s coming.
We all pour our hearts and souls into Disney Infinity to make sure the game you play is the best it can be because our fans deserve nothing less. This year, we believe we raised the bar with the 3.0 version of our game, and we’re truly humbled to see that hard work and the support of our fans pay off as we hit another very important milestone for the franchise: Disney Infinity was, for the second year in a row, the No. 1 game in the toys-to-life category for 2015.
Continued support through 2016 – More of EVERYTHING!
We value our fans and your feedback, and we’ve heard your requests to extend the life of our Starter Packs loud and clear. You’ve asked for a wider variety of content, across a wide variety of brands with each Play Set, and that’s what we’re committed to delivering. So, in 2016, we are focusing our development efforts on adding more Play Sets and characters – based on the biggest events coming from Disney this year – to the 3.0 Edition. In other words, if it’s happening at The Walt Disney Company, it’s happening inside Disney Infinity.
Specifically, we plan to release four new Play Sets that are compatible with Disney Infinity 3.0 in 2016. While more details for each of those will be announced throughout the year – so you’ll want to keep an eye on future Disney Infinity Next webcasts – you can expect these to come from the four core brands at The Walt Disney Company: Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars. These new Play Sets will ensure that Disney Infinity 3.0 has the largest collection of content ever released inside a Disney video game.
Zootopia
These additions begin today as we welcome Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde from the world of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Zootopia. These new characters from the upcoming movie, plus four new Power Discs, are now available in stores worldwide. We spoke with the directors of the movie to share their vision behind bringing Judy and Nick as playable characters in Disney Infinity, which you can catch inside the clip.
Welcome Baloo!
Not long after Zootopia comes to theaters on March 4, Jon Favreau’s live-action remake of the classic Disney animated film, The Jungle Book will open. To mark the occasion, we wanted to go back into the Disney vaults and celebrate the animated classics that started it all by bringing Baloo, one of our favorite characters, into the game.
Baloo represents another instance where your feedback makes a difference. We’ve heard fans have been asking for more classic Disney animated characters, and it’s always on our minds as we move forward with Disney Infinity. The upcoming film was the perfect occasion to follow through on those requests and bring a beloved Disney character in Disney Infinity 3.0.
Marvel Battlegrounds
We also offered a deep look inside the development and gameplay of the upcoming Marvel Play Set, Marvel Battlegrounds. For this Play Set, we worked closely with the amazing team at Marvel to develop an original story, while partnering with our friends at United Front Games on the development. With this Play Set, we are introducing four-player local co-op gameplay to Disney Infinity, which we think is a perfect fit for the arcade, brawler gameplay featured in Marvel Battlegrounds.
Today we announced that three brand new iconic characters will be joining Captain America – The First Avenger, Hulkbuster and Ultron in the fray of Marvel Super Heroes and Super Villains: Black Panther, Ant-Man and Vision – with more on the way. The new line-up of characters includes costumes inspired by the upcoming film “Captain America: Civil War,” releasing in theaters May 6, 2016.
We also want to point out that Black Suit Spider-Man will be released as an individual character. Originally only available with the PlayStation Vita® version of Disney Infinity 2.0, we heard your requests to have him released as a stand-alone figure, and we have done just that so fans will be able to use him on their favorite platform of choice.
Black Suit Spider-Man is just one of the 2.0 characters you’ll be able to use in Marvel Battlegrounds, which supports all of the Marvel characters previously introduced in Disney Infinity. This feature gives Marvel Battlegrounds the most playable characters than any previous Disney Infinity Play Set.
We also debuted a new Marvel Battlegrounds trailer. In case you missed it, watch the new Marvel characters in battle here: http://di.sn/6005BdnId.
We hope that you enjoyed this first episode of Disney Infinity Next. The team is hard at work on the second episode of Disney Infinity Next, which will be released in the coming months when we’ll have more news to share from our friends at Pixar.
Until then follow our social feeds on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram and check out Toy Box TV on YouTube or the El Capitan in the Disney Infinity 3.0 Toy Box Hub to keep up with Allison Petrek and John Vignocchi. And, of course, always let us know your thoughts and comments via social media using #DisneyInfinityNEXT.
