Skylanders Battlecast to bring mammoth franchise to mobile card game next year

Activision’s longstanding Skylanders franchise is being made into a card battle game for iOS and Android.

Skylanders Battlecast incorporates the traditional game’s toys-to-life gameplay by allowing players to scan real-world cards into their game. By scanning in two cards, an animated battle complete with touch interaction can be generated. However, digital card packs will also be available for purchase.

Although the game’s mechanics have yet to be fully detailed, a glimpse at some early Battlecast cards reveals an attack and health system similar, at least structurally, to that of Hearthstone, Blizzard’s money-printing CCG. Battlecast also appears to have taken a page out of the book of Pokémon’s card game in the form of special but simple abilities. There also seems to be a way to tailor the abilities of each character through Battlecast's in-game collection (pictured below).

Naturally, Battlecast will support online play. In fact, it has “everything from collectability to strategic card combat and online PvP,” by Activision’s word. The studio promises additional information regarding Battlecast will be released leading up to its launch. Which Skylanders characters will be incorporated is a particularly hot topic, though all is highly likely.

Skylanders Battlecast will be a free-to-play affair available on the App Store, Google Play and Amazon’s Appstore when it launches in 2016.