The spice must flow

Just when I think I'm free at last to crack open new games during the chilled-out holiday break, I keep hearing about content updates for games I've already finished. It never ends! If you wrapped up Starlink: Battle for Atlas and ?have since moved on, you might want to give it another look beginning tomorrow.

Starlink is assembling a new?? range of enemies,?? another activity, and a photo mode in a free update.

As you fly around your old stomping ground, you might notice a few new threats including Sentinels, a scout-like unit that can call for reinforcements, and Obelisks, long-range towers that would fit right at home in a tower defense game. Ubisoft is also fleshing out the game's flora and fauna with prickly bouncing burs and strange globs that balloon until they burst. Best of all, though? Sandworms!

Along with more sources of Electrum, Starlink's main currency, the update will also sprinkle turret-defended Outlaw fortifications across the universe. It's something new to tackle if you'?re out of ideas.

Starlink's holiday update goes live on De????cember 21, 2018 for all platforms.

December Update – Codename Holiday Gift [Starlink]

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The digital version of course

It's flying in a bit under the radar, sandwiched between some of the biggest games of the year, but the new Ubisoft toys-to-life franchise Starlink: Battle for Atlas has launched for Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.

Judging by the comments, people mostly want to know about the different versions of the game available. So, to clarify this for anybody who might be confused, I've created this spreadsheet to show you exactly what's being advertised with the Starlink Starter Pack, Digitial Edi??tion, and Digital Deluxe Edition.

Everything listed above is based on available information found at the Ubisoft store and Starlink website, as well as the PlayStation store and Nintendo website. Of note, the Zenith ship and Shredder weapon included with the Starter Pack for Switch are digital, not physical. Anything not included with either the Digital Edition or the Starter Pack can be purchased as DLC or as a toys-to-life accessory from a retailer. If yo?u purchase a digital edition of the game and then buy some of the toys-to-life accessories, you will need to purchase a controller mount to actually use them.

In addition to everything above, there are also two store-exclusive ship packs: GameStop is selling the Cerberus ship with Razor Lemay pilot and the Shockwave weapon, while Target has the exclusive on the Scramble ship with Levi McCray pilot and Fury Cannon weapon. And of course, the Switch version of the game comes with an exclusive Star Fox mission campaign.

I hope this helps you decide which version is right for you. Find our final review of Starlink: Battle for Atlas here.

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Sorry Olivia Newton-John but this is the one time we should not get physical

I’d like to start this review off with a tale of Goofus and Gallant and hope to God the Highlights people don’t sue me for doing so. One day, Goofus and Gallant decide to buy the new toys-to-life game Starlink: Battle for Atlas. Goofus walks ??into his local GameStop and buys the PlayStation 4 Starter Pack and nothing else. Galla?nt uses his Switch to log into the eShop where he purchases the Digital Edition of the game for $15 less than what Goofus paid.

Later that day, both boys are enjoying Starlink when they encounter a particularly tough Prime on the desert planet of Kirite. Gallant has his Arwing destroyed, and quickly switches over to one of his four other ships and keeps fighting. Goofus loses his Zenith in the battle,?? and because he has no other ships to play with, has to pay a fine to respawn back at the last checkpoint he passed. When they come across a spire that needs to be opened with yellow weapons, Gallant equips his Levitator gun and solves the puzzle with ease. Goofus spends the next 20 minutes scouring for canisters he can throw at the spire to do the same thing, before giving up and blasting of??f into space to battle a Dreadnought only to die and have to pay a fine to respawn all the way back at the last checkpoint he passed.

If you plan on picking up Starlink: Battle for Atlas, don’t be a Goofus. Be a Gallant.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch [reviewed]) 
Developer: Ubisoft Toronto 
Publisher: Ubisoft 
Released: October 16, 2018 
MSRP: $59.99 Digital Edition, $74.99 Starter Pack

Starlink: Battle for Atlas is Ubisoft’s attempt to do toys-to-life right. Back in 2015, when the genre hits its peak with Skylanders, Lego Dimensions, and Disney Infinity all taking up entire aisles in Toys’r’Us stores, any customers who didn’t want to buy a game and a bunch of little figures just so they could play it were left out. None of those franchises gave people the option to buy their accessories digitally, and now two of them are dead and one is on hiatus. With Starlink, Ubisoft has created a title bridges the gap between toy collectors and those who just want the game. Unfortunately, the end product is one that greatly benefits people who don’t care about toys and leaves those who do buy the physical ships ho??lding the short end of the stick.

The central gimmick of Starlink revolves around swapping out the pieces and parts of your ship to make your own, unique flying machine. Digitally, this is a snap. With the basic Digital Edition of the game will give you access to a few ships, pilots and weapons to tinker around with. While there is no simple button to push to start from scratch, it’s intuitive and only takes a moment to switch out rigs before getting you back?? in the action.

When going with the Starter Pack, it’s a lot more laborious and limited ?process. You can’t switch ships on the fly and you only have access to the weapons that are included in the set. Even if you a??re using the physical Arwing with the digital edition of the game, so long as your Joy-Con controllers are inserted into the included controller mount, you can only use the ship currently attached. Ship destroyed in battle? Now you have to carefully remove your ship from your controller and attach the next. Don’t have another ship? Pay a fine (with in-game currency) and get sent back to the last checkpoint.

Now, I should note this does not apply when playing Starlink in handheld mode. The Switch Starter Set includes the Arwing toy and a digital Zenith ship. When taking the game on the road, you don’t need to worry about bringing the toys with you. Every toy you scan into Starlink will unlock a digital version that’s good for ??seve?n days.

The disparity between the two versions of the game creates an unusual situation where people who pay less are receiving the superior experience. You get more with the $60 Digital Edition than you do spending more than $100 on plastic accessories. The toys are pretty decent, the starships anyway, but having multiple vessels at the ready is important in Starlink because ships are pretty much this game’s version of lives. Repairing a ship, and thus regaining a life, is stupidly inexpensi?ve but it can only be done in certain locations. Of course, the need to repair ships is ??entirely in the hand of the player.

In addition to four different difficulties and multiple aim assist settings, Starlink is a game that rewards hard work by making the experience easier. The goal of this open-world game is to free the Altas system from Grax and his Forgotten Legion. As a pilot with the Starlink team, you’re tasked with visiting each planet in the system and freeing them from the Legion’s clutch by completing a set list of often menial tasks. You land o??n a planet, destroy swarm hives, construct facilities to expand your influence, eliminate extractors, and free encampments before battling the Prime beast unleashed by the Legion to take over the planet. This method of planet salvation remains the same for each colorfu?l world you visit.

Eliminating the Prime is the goal for each world and you’re free to go after it the moment you touch down. However, doing all that busy work will make it easier. When you construct a facility on a f?allen hive, one of the options you have to build is an armory. An armory will recruit other pilots to patrol the planet and help you in battle. With an armory, you can more easily take down extractors. Take down enough extractors, and the Prime roaming the planet’s surface will decrease in power. A full-power Infernal Prime has four phases to its fight making for a long and exhilarating battle. A basic Prime, depleted of all its power from destroyed extractors, can be taken down in less than 90 seconds.

The hard work extends beyond?? terrestrial matters as well. Eliminating Primes from planets will decrease the power of the Dreadnoughts sent by Grax to take over worlds of the Altas system. Each Dreadnought is powered up by two Primes and once those are eliminated, the battles against these massive ships become a lot more manageable.

I absolutely love fighting my way through the Dreadnoughts. In fact, I love the combat in this game period. Whether I’m taking down a group of outlaws who’ve ensnared me in a hyperdrive trap or doing battle with the various cyclopes the Legion unleash on every planet, Starlink is at its best when I’m killing something. These battles can get quite intense and the Switch hardware does an extraordinary job of keeping framerate drops to a minimum when either docked or in handheld?? mode. It’s incredibly fluid and Ubisoft Toronto absolutely nailed the controls for the two different types of combat. In space or when flying, you have full control of your spacecraft and enemies can come at you from any direction. When gliding across a planet’s surface, your ship controls like a hovercraft, letting you move in all 360 degrees as you dodge incoming attacks or circle a foreign creature as part of a fauna scan.

Fauna scans are just some of the busy work Starlink has to extend the life of the game. Each facility you build will come with its own set of missions, but completing them is not really required to beat the game. On the first planet I was stuck on, I took the time and made the effort to complete each mission an observatory or excavator would assign to me. When I reached the second planet and realized all of those missions were the exact same, I realized maxing out each planet wasn’t going to be worth my time or effort. Ubisoft Toronto put a lot of work into making each of these worlds distinct from one another, using the power of the Snow Drop engine to c?reate some truly captivating landscapes, but not enough attention was given to making each planetary experience unique. Though flush with flora, these worlds are largely barren with only a few giant animal species roaming the surface. There are no cities, or ruins or points of interest to discover, just the cookie-cutter facilities I construct and carbon-copy encampments scattered across each world.

I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the Star Fox features found in the Switch version of Starlink. To put it bluntly, it’s a pretty small portion of additional content. There are a handful of missions scattered across a few of the planets that can be completed i??n less than two hours. Ubisoft Toronto did a decent job of including Fox and friends in the game’s story, having them present from the very start of the campaign. Eventually, they set out on their own -- after hilariously disappearing in the middle of a cutscene for no reason -- but they’ll occasionally pop up in your com system to remind you of the missions at hand.

While I admire the work that went into fully voicing the Star Fox crew and creating custom cutscenes for the Switch version of the game, there really isn’t any Star Fox influence in this exclusive string of missions. Each one plays more or less like the rest of the game and while I think the final battle at Wolf’s lair is arguably the best space fight in the entire package, the soul of Star Fox is completely absent. You could replace Star Fox with just about any other sci-fi f??ranchise and stil??l get the same experience.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas is a good game that's robbed of greatness by a lack?? of ambition and terrible toys-to-life implementation. Everything it gets right – the clever mix-and-match shipbuilding, the combat, the controls, the imaginative alien worlds, the decent space opera storyline – can’t escape the vortex of tedium that comes with pedestrian mission desi??gn, planets that are mechanically the same, and the crushing knowledge that people who buy just the Starter Pack are getting an unquestionably inferior experience.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provi?ded by the publisher. In addition to receiving the Digital Deluxe Edition of the game, several of the Starlink ships, pilots, and weapons toys-to-lif?e accessories were provided as well.]}

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Bark at the Moon

A new trailer for recently-launched toys-to-life sci-fi adventure Starlink: Battle for Atlas pushes the new IP's crossover with Nintendo's Star Fox franchise further, featuring a glimpse at some familiar antago????nists.

Responding to a mercy call from Starlink pilots under fire, Fox McCloud and his faithful crew, jet into battle, accompanied by a funky remix of the classic Star Fox stage one theme. However, there is evil lurking i?n the galaxy, and we get to see it in the form of arch-villain Andross and Fox's eternal rival, Wolf McDonnell. Also, someone says "Do a barrel roll", because that's a thing.

Starlink launched last week to a fairly positive response from both critics and fans. If you're interested in jetting off into the great unknown yourself, then check out CJ Andriessen's review right here, along with this nifty buyer's guide to the various sets on offer.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas is available now on PS4, Xb??ox One, and Nintendo Switch.

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Do a barrel roll!

I remember the first time I played a title in the Skylanders series. It was the first game for the Nintendo 3DS. I found it on sale at Best Buy and decided to pick both it and three figures up. When I got home I ended up beating the game in just a few hours, only to find I didn't actually beat the game. At least not all of it. Skylanders was designed to get you to buy toys, and while I had three figures to go with my game,?? I didn't have the right figures to u?nlock every route, or to see every part of every level.

I could have gone back to the store and purchased the three extra figures I needed to see all Skylanders had to offer, but instead I traded the game in; realizing that while I found the gameplay fun, forcing me to buy more toys just to see slightly different areas in each stage was not something I could bring myself to do. Thankfully, that won't be an issue with Starlink: Battle for Atlas.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch [reviewed])
Developer: Ubisoft Toronto
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released: October 16, 2018
MSRP $59.99 Digital Edition, $74.99 Starter Pack

Before I start, I need to be upfront with what Ubisoft provided to me for this review. I was sent the Nintendo Switch starter pack, containing the Star Fox Arwing ship, but with the physical copy of the game taken out. I was also sent three additional toys-to-life ships, one pilot toys-to-life pack, and one toys-to-life weapons pack. To actually play the game, I was sent a code for the digital edition as well as all of the DLC. Needless to say, I have everything I need to play Starlink: Battle for Atlas and then some. 

Now, there are two different ways to play Starlink: digital or physical. Physical requires the use of the toys. You're not bound to them, but there are certain stipulations you should know about. When you plug a ship, pilot, or weapon into the controller dock, you unlock a digital version in-game for seven days. That way you can play Starlink on the go wi?thout having to bring the toys with you.

Digital is how I imagine most of you will be playing the game. This gives you access to all the ships you unlock in perpetuity, and, unlike with physical, you can switch your weapons, wings, and ships on the fly. I played through the first planet with my Arwing sitting atop my Joy-Con controller dock and didn't mind it much (it's not too heavy) but the frequent need to swap out weapons for the task at hand has kept me in digital mode for the rest of?? the time I've played.

As of this review-in-progress, I am about 14 hours into the game. In that time, I've explored four planets and have got a general feel for how the rest of the game is going to play out. Starlink: Battle for Atlas is an open-world space shooter where I, as a member of the Starlink team, am trying to liberate planets in the Altas system from the scourge of the Forgotten Legion. Headed up by Grax, a feathery fellow with a General Grievous gait, the Le?gion is searching for Nova, an extremely power substance that Starlink's leader St. Grand just happens to know how to create. St. Grand learned this from Judge, a swarm-like alien creature, who crash-lan?ded on Earth and helped develop the Starlink technology.

Liberating each planet, so far, ha??s followed a similar pattern: I land, e?liminate some Imp hives, build some refineries and observatories, destroy a few extractors, and lay waste to the Prime beasts that roam the land. Eliminating the Prime and extractors gives me cores I can use to improve the various complexes I construct on each planet, helping them build a defense network to protect themselves for when I mosey onto the next world.

The Prime beasts are just one of the threats on each planet. There are also cycloptic robots sent by the Legion and outlaws that'll attack both you and any ships working for the settlements you build. There is a shallow diversity of fauna on each planet, but most of them are non-confrontational. Battles with the cyclops and outlaws don't really? differ from encounter to encounter. The bouts are frequently intense as I glide across the planet's surface, dodging enemy attacks as I try to take out three or four of them at a time, but with such a small number of enemies in the game, these battles tend to blend into one a??nother.

It's never overwhelming, thanks to the unique weapons system Starlink employs. Each wing of my aircraft can hold a single gun and there are different elemental va??riations at m??y disposal. One of the most effective ways to take down foes is to hit them with a Nullifier, which creates a small vortex that does continued damage, and then hitting that vortex with a fire or ice weapon. This creates a fire or ice vortex, helping me bring down an elemental cyclops in a jiffy. There's a great deal of fun improvisation to be had with the weapons system, keeping the experience fresh even if the objectives I'm tasked with can feel quite repetitive.

It can also feel like busy work. Let me give you one example I've come across so far: As part of my journey across the system, I can scan each creature I see to find out exactly what it is. Scanning requires me to do a full 360-degree circle around the animal, and then find two more of the same species and repeat the process. That's just for my records, but some of the research outposts I discover on these planets will also ask me to scan the animals for their studies. One one of the planets, I was asked to use their scanning device to scan three examples of a giant toad creature I'd already scanned three times for myself. So I found three of these toads and scanned them all again, completing the mis??sion. At the very next outpost I found, they asked me to scan the same damn creature. Doing a full 360 around three creatures of the same species?? just to discover what it is already feels like overkill. Doing it nine times is flaccid mission design.

There is still a lot for me to see. With the first third of the Atlas system more-or-less safe, I can move onto the unexplored planets of the system, get to work on some of those sidequests I've been ignoring, and finally see what the Star Fox missions are all about. To hear about all that and more, check back once the final review for Starlink: Battle for Atlas is posted.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher. In addition to receiving the Digital Edition of the game, several of the Starlink ships, pilots, and weapons toys-to-life accessories were provided as well.]}

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Holding out for a hero

Ubisoft has dropped a couple of dramatic 30-second spots taking a look at two of the heroes from their upcoming Toys-to-Life space shooter Starlink: Battle for Atlas, which jets off on multiple platforms late?r this month.

The first trailer features canon protagonist Mason Rana, who pilots the powerful star fighter, The Zenith. Unfortunately for old Mason here, his moment of glory has, let's face it, been completely eclips??ed by the addition of one of Nintendo's most popular characters...

Fox McCloud, who features in the second trailer, will be jetting into battle piloting his trusty Arwing. Revealed as a surprise crossover character during E3 this year, the appearance of McCloud is likely to bring a lot of Star Fox fans into the fold, especially those ?who?? want to pick up the sweet tie-in toys.

You can check out the two pilots in the videos below. Starlink: Battle for Atlas launches ?on PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch October 16.

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They barrel rolled, essentially

To a lot of people, the reveal that the Switch port of Ubisoft's upcoming Starlink: Battle for Atlas would include exclusive Star Fox content was enough to propel the game from, "Looks decent," to, "Holy shit, I?? need this!" I know I'm suddenly interested in having a weird toys-to-life game if it means I can play a beloved Nintendo icon. How did that collaboration come to be, though?

A recent issue of Famitsu had an interview with Starlink producer Matthew Rose and it reveals that the cross-over happened to be a chance encounter that Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime had with the game. During a closed doors event in 2017 (possibly at E3), Reggie noticed the possibilities the game could harbor and invited the devs to present an idea to Miyamoto and the Star Fox team (not the actual members of Star Fox, though that would be awesome).

Rose also told Famitsu that his team is working to faithfully recreate the abilities of the Arwing for use in Starlink. His team is all very big Star Fox fans and they are dedicated to capturing Fox's personality traits and special abilities (of wh?ich many are still under wraps).

As for the demo we did see at E3, Rose is stressing that Starlink will be fully completable without any additional toys beyond the starter pack. Post-launch DLC will be coming to the title (probably with some physical toys, as well), but you only need to purchase the main title to experience the story that Starlink has to offer.

Starlink Producer Matthew Rose Reveals The Origins Of The Star Fox Collaboration [Siliconera]

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It's out of this world

When Starlink: Battle for Atlas was announced at E3 2017, I immediately wrote it ??off. Here was a new toys-to-life product in a time when other franchises in that niche were starting to die off. In 2017 it seemed like an antiquated concept. In 2018 it's downright ancient. When Ubisoft went silent on the new IP, I told myself it was either being canceled or changed to remove th??e toys-to-life aspect.

Ubisoft proved me wrong. It didn't cancel the game, nor did it drop the toys-to-life accessories. In fact, it doubled down on it, surprising audiences with a Star Fox crossover right out of left field.?? As I watched its most recent trailer, I thought I was wrong to write the game off so quickly.

Guess what? I was wrong. Really, really wrong. Starlink: Battle for Atlas is a banger, and everything I wanted Star Fox Zero to be.

There were no toys in the Nintendo press area for me to see, so my hands-on session with Starlink starts off with a bit of confu?sion. Putting together a ship without the toys takes a few moments for me to get right, and even when I complete my spacecraft, I'm not quite sure it's wh??at I want. There are multiple ships to choose from, but naturally, I go straight for the Arwing, an exclusive vehicle in the Switch version. Fox was not available as a playable pilot, so I settle for Shaid.

In putting my ship together, I can choose from several available guns to equip, one on each wing. I opt for th??e Volcano with its rap??id-fire blasts and the Imploder, a devious weapon that fires black holes that do sustained damage. Again, assembling my ship wasn't what I'd call intuitive, but once I get into action, everything clicks.

I start off in space, flying freely above a planet that houses my first objective. Directional control of my vessel is handled with one control stick while the other activates thrust. After getting my bearings with everything, I dive toward the planet in a seamless transition from space to surface. Once on the ground, the controls of my ship change, mimicking those of the Star Fox Landmaster. I don't fly so much as hover above the ground with full 360-degree movement. I can also jump and barrel?? roll, but if I screw up the latter maneuver I have to press the B button to recover. 

Th??e left and right triggers handle my equipped guns and soon enough I fly my way over to my first skirmish as part of my mission. There are a few to??wers I have to take out, and I alternate between my Volcano and Imploder unleashing massive damage. At first, I can just fly around freely and wantonly fire, but as the energy of the main tower drops, it ups its defenses. My carefree fighting technique changes as the tower sends out deadly lasers I have to jump rope over while continuing to fire on its weak spot until it's destroyed. 

The second part of my mission takes me a short distance across the planet. Here, I encounter a four-legged beast that is my final objective. This boss is massive, towe??ring over my ship and able to summon minions to help defend it. It seems like a lot, but I have everything in con??trol. By now, I'm a veritable expert at handling my ship, quickly taking down the boss's summoned creatures while blasting its weak points. It's a long battle, but one I emerge victoriously from wondering if there is time for me to play it again.

Honestly, I'm still in shock with how good Starlink: Battle for Atlas is. With how disappointed I was with Star Fox Zero, Starlink fills me with glee. Nothing about what I played ?came across as a cheap cash-in banking on the appeal of toys-to-life. This is the real deal, and while there is still so much I don't know about the game (like the scope of the galaxy), it very well coul??d be the best game I play at E3 this year.

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Do a... Well, you know the rest.

During Ubisoft's E3 presentation, the publisher released a new trailer for their Toys-to-Life sci-fi title, Starlink: Battle for Atlas.

Players will journey through deepest space, exploring magnificent environments and engaging in fast, brutal space battles. But Switch users will have a huge helping hand in the form of Nintendo's intergalactic hero, Fox McCloud and the Star Fox team, coming exclusively to the Switch edition.

Shigeru Miyamoto himself turned up to help reveal the shocking crossover, and was presented with the original Arwing model used to create the famous ship in the upcoming space adventure. Here's hoping a selection of cool Arwing toys will ?be made availabl?e to use in conjunction with the game.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas launches on October 16 for Switch, PS4 and Xbox O??ne.

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*spaceship noises*

Starlink: Battle for Atlas stuck out to me as an oddity from Ubisoft’s E3 conference last year. Even in 2017, the NFC figure craze was clearly a dying trend, and most series cut their losses by either shutting down or scooting into other media. The only one still regularly supported -- pending a surprise Skylanders announcement at this year's E3 -- is Nintendo’s amiibo, and it’s a stretch to say they’re “toys-to-life.” Most consider them far more appealing as a collector’s item than as a piece of boring DLC in an overpriced plastic shell. But Ubisoft isn’t backing down on Starlink, and have mentioned it by name in their E3 2018 plans.

I have mixed feelings towards my own collection of such figures. Some are met with a grin of childlike glee. Others just get a sigh of buyer’s remorse. Starlink could become the former, but with even Skylanders going quiet, it’s public knowledge that it’s a gamble to produce games and figures like this. The sole exception is if the IP is powerful enough to carry them as individual pieces of merchandise -- even then there is no guarantee -- and that’s something I don't see happening with a brand? new IP.

It makes me wonder what Ubisoft is thinking trying to get into this field, especially towards an older audience that’s much more skeptical towards? the concept. Yes, Ubisoft is obviously chasing potential loads of money, except the loss of such money is why these games have declined. But the more I think about its emphasis on modular ship design, the more I think it just may be onto something.

The crux of the concept of toys-to-life is the games coincide with the figures. They are two halves of a whole. One would (hopefully) be pretty alright without th?e other, but without both, something feels hollow about them. This is why I insist amiibo aren’t toys-to-life anymore. Early amiibo allowed data to be written to them and applied across games, some uses more interesting than others. But Nintendo hasn’t made another game making use of this feature since Breath of the Wild’s Wolf Link companion, because amiibo are capable of driving enough sales by sheer collector value. Nintendo doesn’t have any reason to design interesting gameplay around them anymore, thus they haven’t tried to do ??so, barring the brief Wolf Link experiment.

That specific use of Wolf Link strikes me as odd, too. Outside of that example, amiibo are criticized for either doing nothing remotely interesting or for locking cool features behind limited-run plastic paywalls. But nobody batted an eye at Wolf Link in Breath of the Wild, despite how random a crossover it was. In fact, despite being the most exclusive amiibo addition to that game, it?? was received much better than any other amiibo usage. That’s because Wolf Link himself enters the game, bridging the gap between game and figure. This use isn’t designed like an unlock code for a new costume or whatever, it’s designed to feel like the toy itself comes to life?.

Starlink, as well as every other figure line before it, understood that emphasis on making the toys feel as if they come to life. Yet Starlink takes that understanding a step further by integrating real figure customization with in-game ship customization. Lego Dimensions attempted something similar by using portal positioning a gameplay mechanic. Building different vehicles out of the same pieces for Lego Dimensions was a fun novelty, but the software couldn’t actually tell whether the Batmobile was a car or a mech or missing a tire, that was all handled in-game. Starlink actually plans to have each modular piece correspond to obvious gameplay changes (and, th??ankfully, simplifies it so you don’t need to find out where that last 1x2 brick went underneath the sofa).

It’s extremely reminiscent of how kids normally would play with modular figures. Switchin?g parts, seeing how they look and pew-pewing them differently is something that simply makes sense for a toy built with modular pieces. Integrating the design into gameplay could make having fun with the figures and having fun with the game more cohesive. That might be why the ships are mounted onto the awkward-looking controller-extension, too. Not only does that keep the figure within reach and swappable, it's positioned similarly to how one would hold a toy ship in front of them and fly it around.

When all of this comes together, I see a combination of my favorite bits and pieces from the other toys-to-life games I’ve played. I see new characters and quirky designs like Skylanders. I see meaningful gameplay distinctions between figures like Skylanders and Disney Infinity. I see interactivity with the figures themselves like Lego Dimensions. If any game is capable ??of proving?? whether this model is worth exploring further, it's a game like this.

For all of my optimistic curiosity, I do see one glaring concern. The trailer shows a segment of gameplay where the ship’s weapons fail to work against a specific type of enemy, so the player switches the figure to a different set of weapons. This is pretty vanilla game design to encourage weapon swapping, but when weapons themselves are restricted to physical merchandise, this could easily be exploited. Skylanders already had gameplay mechanics where "Element X" is more effective here and th?ere, but not anything as drastic as (seemingly) nullifying attacks. I would assume the starter set will be enough to defeat any enemy, but you know what they say about assuming.

Actually, as I did a little? research ??to fact-check this piece, I came across this interview. In it, a producer at Ubisoft says that they’re also planning for every ship and part to be collectible digitally, without ever touching a physical figure. Huh. That…actually sounds like a good compromise. Though as always, the devil is in the details we don’t know yet. Especially given Ubisoft?’s track record for microtransactions.

The toys-to-life fad came and went rather quickly because designing them requires an extremely delicate balancing act. This model can’t last in the long term without hitting the sweet spot between good game design, appealing figures, and family-friendly pricing. I don’t expect Starlink to cause a dramatic mass-resurgence of the model, nor do I want it to. So many costly figure lines competing in a tight market was one of many factors that choked it out in the first place. And yet, Starlink intrigues me because i?t has the potential to realize my overly active imagination more than any toys-??to-life game before it.

Naturally, it won’t succeed in that balance unless its gameplay is designed well outside of its figures, and we still know very little about that. If that isn’t up to snuff, this IP might as well be another line of amiibo. But we’ll know more this upcoming E3, assuming Ubisoft doesn’t spontaneously combust. I have no plans to commit to another game like this myself, but I enjoy watching unusual avenues of game design unfold, and I’m curious to see whether Starlink will make th?is idea work better than its precursors.

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Starlink: Battle for Atlas

Ubisoft Toronto is at the helm of the publisher's new toys-to-life title. It's a space game called Starlink: Battle for Atlas, where you travel to a bunch of unique planets.

That is why the Dtoid E3 War Room immediately dubbed this No Man's Skylanders. I'm sure a bunch of other internet folks simultaneously and independently also made this joke. We ??take the layups when we? can get them.

Anyway, Starlink is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and Switch i??n fall of 2018. There's plenty of time to figure out the scope of this project. A good idea would ??probably be to not over-promise.

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