LEGO® Dimensions is a game that communicates with NFC tagged figures. Similar games like Disney infinity and Skylanders have made their new tittles backwards compatible with their older figures. It looks like LEGO Dimensions is going to be fowards-compatible with theirs.

I have alot of experience with the Skylanders game, and some with Disney Infinity, mostly the 2.0 Avengers Toybox edition. Both of these games require physical figures to play (though PC versions of Infinity supports “Digital figures” but wheres the fun in that?). Some may call it a rip-off, paying for the game and paying for every single character, even level unlocking tokens for content on the disc you already bought. If you understand what your getting into before hand, your really paying for the play experience of using those figures and tokens, and both of these games have plenty of merit in that regard.

I was both worried and hopeful when I heard about LEGO® Dimensions, curious how the game would play. Would they offer the same interesting components as Skylanders and the Marvel Infinity figures (which save upgrades, exp, money, etc on a built in memory card) to make them more than simple character unlock tokens? Would the LEGO Company take this opportunity to set a good example in this market by giving you expansions for free, assuming you bought the figures that gave you access to them?

Skylanders has released four games now, three of which required a starter pack with a new peripheral to play, but all the figures from previous versions carried over to the new games. New figures of course did not work with older games, unless they were a re-release of a figure from a previous tittle. Figures of different types and elements are required to access parts of each level containing hats and upgrades, though the majority of the game is open to any figure.

Disney Infinity has released two tittles now, and have announced a third. All appear to use the same portal and are also backwards compatible with figures. Unfortunately the figures only work in specific areas (called playsets) made for them, though they all work in the custom level builder mode called toybox. Even though playsets only work with specific figures and exist on the disc you bought, you still need a playset unlocking token to load them. Those tokens can usually be bought in packs that also include two figures from that playset, making it harder to only buy the characters you want. Some versions of the game can be bought digitally on console for a reduced price, which is great if you only want the Toybox mode anyway, but you’l still pay close to full price to unlock the starter kit content anyway.

This news on Joystiq/Engadget reports that figures released later on will all be compatible with the same starter pack. If I understand correctly, you only need to buy one LEGO Dimensions starter pack, and wont need to buy newer editions to play with any future content or figure pack released. Maybe this means they plan to keep one version of the game up to date through patches, with newer starter packs simply containing different characters and a more up to date game disc? Or maybe they simply plan to ensure the figures have some functionality on earlier versions, even if they have exclusive content on newer editions? Hopefully we’ll hear more soon!

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