Joseph Schuhmann

The disc cases for both games.

The toys-to-life genre of games were a big trend during the 2010s. They involved placing a figurine of sorts onto a “portal” that would then allow you to play as that character. It was a fun gaming experience, but also an expensive one. This genre of games has all but died out, but it still remains to be a part of many people’s childhood. Two of these games that I have the most fondness towards are Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions. Since this year marks the 10th anniversary of the 3.0 edition of Disney Infinity as well as LEGO Dimensions, I will be taking a look back at these games in this article.

Let’s start with Disney Infinity. Released back in 2013, Disney Infinity was a way to bring characters from some of Disney’s most popular IPs into one game. The Starter Pack for the first edition of the game came with Mr. Incredible, Sully, and Jack Sparrow. The 2.0 version came with Iron Man, Thor, and Black Widow. And the 3.0 edition came with Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano. The 3.0 edition is the best version of the game because all the characters from the first two versions can be played in it along with the characters that can only be played in 3.0. Imagination is the name of the game as in the ToyBox mode, you can make anything you want with a wide variety of things from the Disney IPs to make your own unique world and have as much fun as your heart desires. The ToyBox is the gateway to endless possibilities and is where the most fun and creativity comes from.

That’s not all. There are also Playsets for certain franchises that gives their own unique campaign for those characters. While these are really fun, it is a bit disappointing that you can only play as the characters from that franchise in the playsets. While it makes sense, the selling point is playing as your favorite Disney characters, and it would be really fun to play as these characters in different worlds. There was a bit of this, though. In 2.0, there were tokens all over the Marvel playsets of one of the characters from the other Marvel Playsets, and collecting enough of them would allow you to play them in that playset. In 3.0, the 3 Star Wars playsets would have these tokens of Star Wars characters from the different eras of the franchise scattered around the planets in the playset. So if you got the token of Luke Skywalker in the Force Awakens playset, you can play as him. While that was cool, it would’ve been really cool to play as, say, Phineas from Phineas and Ferb in New York of the Spider-Man playset. Again, the Playsets are fun, but it would’ve been more fun to play as characters that aren’t from that franchise in the playsets.

The game was cancelled in 2016, as Avalanche Software was shut down and Disney was getting out of the “self-published console games.” The game is still playable today, even though there are no online features to play other people’s ToyBoxes. I personally still enjoy playing the Marvel Battlegrounds playset, where you can fight three other Marvel characters in an all-out brawl.

Now on to LEGO Dimensions. Released in 2015, LEGO Dimensions is like Disney Infinity, except instead of Disney franchises, it’s a bunch of different franchises from that aren’t Disney-related and are in LEGO. Dimensions still functions like a regular LEGO video game; the biggest difference being that the playable roster (minus Batman, Gandalf, and Wildstyle) is sold separately.

Like other LEGO games, Dimensions has a campaign: An extraterrestrial sorcerer named Lord Vortech wants to unite all the dimensions into his own perfect image. Batman, Gandalf the Grey, and Wildstyle from the LEGO Movie have to stop Vortech from getting all the dimensions Foundation Elements and rescue their friends who’ve been captured by Vortech. It’s a really fun story with the only drawback being that it’s only Batman, Gandalf, and Wildstyle who stop Lord Vortech. It would’ve been really cool if these three characters teamed up with the heroes of the dimension that they travel to when they travel to them. Yes, the Twelfth Doctor from Doctor Who does play an important role in the Doctor Who level and end of the story, and at the end of the story, the trio does round up some of the other characters from the dimensions to help stop Vortech, but they don’t really do anything because you’re not meant to be playing as them. If this wasn’t a toys-to-life game, then I definitely could see those characters from the other dimensions who didn’t come in the Starter Pack being implemented in the main story more. Despite that, it’s still a really fun story for a LEGO game.

Like other LEGO games, after beating the main story, Dimensions has a free mode. However, instead of being a big open world, there are over a dozen hub worlds to represent all the different dimensions that can be accessed through dimensional portals with one of the characters from that dimension. So if you don’t own a character from a particular dimension, you can’t access that dimension. The hub worlds are home to puzzles and character missions that reward Gold Bricks that are standard for LEGO games. Some of my favorite hub worlds in the game are the DC, Ninjago, Scooby Doo, Back to the Future, and Sonic the Hedgehog worlds.

There is more to Dimensions, though. The characters that are sold separately come in 3 forms: Fun Packs, Team Packs, and Level Packs. Fun Packs are one character with a vehicle/item (that can be used for transportation and puzzle solving). Team Packs come with two characters and a vehicle for each of them, and Level Packs come with one character and TWO vehicles/items and their own little story level. There were also three Story Packs that gave a story with multiple levels like the main story. These were made for the 2016 version of Ghostbusters, Fantastic Beasts, and the LEGO Batman Movie. The characters in the game all have their own abilities that can solve certain puzzles that you can’t do with other characters. So you can play with some of your favorite characters in any dimension, but know that some characters are necessary for 100% completing the entire game.

A big gameplay mechanic in this game that is unique to it is the Keystone devices. There are five Keystones that you collect in the first few levels of the game that have their own unique abilities for solving puzzles and progressing through the game, and they all need the toy pad that you put the characters on (which holds up to seven characters) to work them. The first Keystone has three differently-colored portals appear around the area, and you need to place the characters on the toy pad to the corresponding color that you want to go to. The second Keystone puts red, blue, and yellow paint splotches on certain pads in the area, and you have to match up the characters on the toy pad with an image of the toy pad with the right colors on it that’s located somewhere nearby. The third Keystone grants elemental powers. Fire to melt ice or burn golden objects, Water to put out fires or fill water devices, Lightning to fill electrical outlets, and Earth to grow plants on plant-based objects. Fire and Lightning also makes you immune to fire and electric hazards. The fourth Keystone makes your characters either big or small, and there’ll be a little maze that needs to be completed by growing or shrinking. The fifth and final Keystone needs you to look for a ghostly piece on the ground. The greener the toy pad is, the closer you are to the piece. Once you find it, you’ll summon something from another dimension to either get rid of something or bring something in to assist you. These are all really cool modes that really make Dimensions stand out from other LEGO games.

LEGO Dimensions was cancelled in 2017 due to three reasons: it was released when the toys-to-life era of games was dying out, it was an expensive investment, even compared to Disney Infinity and other toys-to-life games and probably wasn’t turning in enough profit, and the developers, TT Games updated their engine for LEGO games, but they still had to use the old one for Dimensions. With all these factors, LEGO discontinued Dimensions. Like Disney Infinity, it still can be played today.

Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions were both great games that were a part of an interesting genre of video games and they were a part of many people’s childhoods, mine included. These games would’ve been even better if they didn’t have the toys-to-life aspect attached to them. I mean, two games were you can play as your favorite characters from different franchises all in one game? As someone who’s a fan of multiple franchises, that sounds like a dream come true. Despite that, these are still some really good games. Happy 10th Anniversary, Disney Infinity 3.0 and LEGO Dimensions.