Disney Infinity Revealed—Features Wreck-It Ralph, Jack Skellington, Davy Jones, and More!

There’s a huge overlap in those who love Nintendo and those who love Disney, and that’s no coincidence—It’s all about the magic. Naturally, the recently-revealed Disney Infinity is coming to Nintendo 3DS, Wii, and Wii U, among every other console on the market. Disney Infinity is essentially Disney’s take on the Skylanders model, using their own well-known brands from recent years, such as Toy Story and Phineas and Ferb, as well as modern classics like The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The trailer above doesn’t show exactly how the main game will be played, but it showcases concepts akin to Minecraft, LittleBigPlanet, and other games, but drawing most significantly from Toy Story 3: The Video Game‘s widely underrated Toy Box feature. The game will allow you to play as characters from several fantastic Disney worlds in their own and others’ locales. If done right, this game has incredible potential both to unite Disney’s most popular franchises in one setting and as a wonderful sandbox game in its own right.

The trailer also puts a major focus on the most marketable part of the game: figurines. Not unlike the massive hit Skylanders, Disney will be selling bundled and standalone figurines that offer in-game bonus content. It’s said that there will be a full 20-character roster available at launch, with even more to follow afterwards. Below is a picture of the full cast of characters, as currently revealed.

As far as I can tell, they seem to have drawn from a few select franchises and gone all-out with the character selections. The revealed roster is as follows:

• Tow Mater, Cars
• Lightning McQueen, Cars
• Holly Shiftwell, Cars
• Francesco Bernouli, Cars
• Edna Mode, The Incredibles
• Syndrome, The Incredibles
• Mirage, The Incredibles
• Rick Dicker, The Incredibles
• Mr. Incredible, The Incredibles
• Elastigirl, The Incredibles
• Dash, The Incredibles
• Violet, The Incredibles
• Jack Skellington, The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Perry the Platypus, Phineas and Ferb
• Phineas Flynn, Phineas and Ferb
• Sulley, Monsters, Inc.
• Mike Wazowski, Monsters, Inc.
• Sheriff Woody, Toy Story
• Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
• Jessie the Cowgirl, Toy Story
• Wreck-It Ralph, Wreck-It Ralph
• Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
• Davy Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean
• Joshamee Gibbs, Pirates of the Caribbean
• Captain Barbarossa, Pirates of the Caribbean
• Tia Dalma, Pirates of the Caribbean
• Pintel and Ragetti, Pirates of the Caribbean

In addition to these characters, the trailer above shows a quick glimpse of Stitch, from Lilo and Stitch, as well as Toy Story‘s Bullseye, acting almost like Epona. But that’s not all! Concept art from the game shows that the following characters are going to appear in the final game, or were at least under consideration at some point in development.

• The Underminer, The Incredibles
• The Abominable Snowman, Monsters, Inc.
• Vanellope Von Schweetz, Wreck-It Ralph
• Maccus, Pirates of the Caribbean
• Charlie Tahan, Frankenweenie
• Sparky, Frankenweenie
• Hamm, Toy Story
• Luigi, Cars
• Grem, Cars

As you can see, this game has immense potential—more than we’ve seen from a video game in a long time. Considering the ambition of goofy yet expansive gameplay and the huge cast of characters, this could be a heavy hitter for several years to come. With recent property acquisitions, hopefully Disney will even be incorporate characters from Lucasfilm and Marvel, such as Star Wars, The Secret of Monkey Island, or Marvel’s little superhero clique. Just no Howard the Duck, please.

Sadly, I have a hunch that despite a large crew of lovable faces and scenes, the gameplay will be a tad underwhelming, and the game will become a missed opportunity more than anything—Especially considering that development is taking place for six consoles at once. First of all, it seems more like a marketing opportunity than anything, especially considering the large number of secondary and tertiary characters from The Incredibles (anyone else smell a sequel?) and the focus on Monsters University over Monsters, Inc. But furthermore, Epic Mickey 2 and the Nicktoons games are still fresh in my mind, but hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.

What are you most excited for about Disney Infinity? Does it look like it’ll be worth the while for you? Besides the obvious Mickey Mouse, what unannounced characters do you hope to see? Whinnie the Pooh? Sora? Tarzan? There’s a treasure trove of characters in Disney’s little IP gold mine, and there’s no telling what wonderful content they could find.