Disney Infinity 3.0: Why Playing As Any Star Wars Character In Any Play Set Is A Big Deal
By Nick Tylwalk
Everyone knows that we didn’t see Ahsoka Tano assisting in the Battle of Yavin. Likewise, Finn from The Force Awakens wasn’t even born yet during the Clone Wars. But when Disney Infinity 3.0 hits stores, you’ll be able to mix them and many more Star Wars characters to your heart’s content.
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If you’ve played previous iterations of Disney Infinity, you already know that it’s a big deal that any Star Wars character will be playable in any Star Wars Play Set, though you’ll have to do a little work to unlock them in any Play Set to which they don’t naturally belong. This was an absolute no-no in the original version of the game, where the Toy Box was the only place characters from different times or places could interact.
What led to this exciting change in philosophy? According to Jeff Bunker, Studio Art Director for Avalanche / Disney Interactive, the credit belongs mostly to LucasArts’ understanding of how Disney Infinity was the type of game that should emphasize fun over canon.
“To LucasArts’ credit, they got the fact that we’re a different type of game,” Bunker said to FanSided in a recent phone interview. “We were already making concessions and compromises to the story. Even characters that were in the same movie or existed in the same timeline, they weren’t present at all those different events that we wanted to have you be able to play through.”
Disney Infinity 2.0 got the ball rolling on this line of thought, allowing certain characters with natural links between two properties to cross over between Play Sets. This time, the idea will be taken to its in-franchise logical extreme. So while you won’t be able to drop Luke Skywalker into the upcoming Marvel Battlegrounds, you can feel free to use him in the Twilight of the Republic Play Set — maybe even fighting alongside his father before he succumbed to the Dark Side.
“We were already breaking some of the storylines,” Bunker said. “And so they just took the natural next step of saying, well, we’re already having a character in this time or in this event that wasn’t there. Let’s allow all the Star Wars characters to be played with in each one of the Play Sets. I’m super happy that we ended up there, because it just gives so much more value to each one of the characters.”
Sounds good to us too. You’ll get your first chance to put that newfound freedom to the test on August 30 (August 28 in Europe), when Disney Infinity 3.0 introduces Star Wars to the mix in earnest.
Next: See the Disney Infinity 3.0 Twilight of the Republic Trailer