Are Lego Dimensions the New Amiibo & Skylanders Craze?

Activision’s Skylanders and Nintendo’s Amiibo action figures are getting some new competition this holiday from a famous name children already know and love. This morning Lego, makers of the building blocks that’ve delighted children for decades announced Lego Dimensions.

Warner Brothers and Lego announced the new Lego Dimension, games and sets this morning in a press release. Lego Dimensions came as almost a complete surprise. Lego traditionally offers themed play sets for buyers to build. It certainly makes sense that the company would debut something like Lego Dimensions, however. In recent years the company pushed hard into video games and partnerships with different entertainment franchises.

Lego Dimensions are tiny figures and worlds that gamers put together. The things that they build are then added to the game world for added play. Lego says that at launch it’ll have Lego Dimension Starter Packs available on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS4, PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii U gaming console beginning September 27th.

As described, Lego Dimensions sounds a lot like Skylanders. The characters you receive in the starter packs and subsequent purchases are physical items that unlock new things in the game. Players simply set their figures on a Toy Pad accessory and they’re sent into the game. Lego says different objects will have Toy Pad functionality too. Lego is pushing the idea that characters can go anywhere and do anything in the game without limits pretty heavily.

The Starter Packs will include the Toy Pad, the parts users need to build a gateway building, plus Lego versions of batman, Gandalf and Wyldstyle. The Lego Batmobile will also be included in the game. Gandalf is character from the Lord of the Rings. Wyldstyle is from The Lego Movie that debuted a few years ago.

Lego says that eventually we’ll see Level Packs, Team Packs and Fun Packs debut with new characters, objects and what it describes as “gadgets.” These packs will go beyond the first three properties, though Lego isn’t fully detailing all of its coming additions for now. The company is ready to confirm Lego Dimensions figures for Marty McFly, Ninjago, Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Gollum. Characters taken from The Lego Movie include Emmet, Bad Cop, Beny and Unikitty. There’s a Wizard of Oz pack coming with characters from that movie too. Lego says it’ll have more information about packs to share sometime in August.

All told, Lego Dimensions has all the raw ingredients for success against Skylanders and even Amiibo. Unlike Amiibo, Lego Dimensions will be widely available to anyone and everyone with a current generation video game console. Adding compatibility for the Xbox 360 and PS3 is a nice touch too. Lego goes so far as to declare “no compatibility chart” is necessary for Lego Dimensions in their press release. Because these are still Lego sets, fans of all ages can look forward to building their characters before they send them into the game. It’s worth noting that Disney Infinity is also a really popular entry in games of this elk.

Presumably, we’ll see more about Lego Dimensions at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo this coming June. So far we’ve only seen the box art and the figures contained in the start set. Lego will definitely want to get actual footage of the game itself out before the fall launch.

GameStop is now offering Lego Dimensions Starter Packs for $99.99. It’s unclear how much the individual figures and Fun Packs will cost when they debut. Today’s press release has no mention of a companion app for iPhones and devices running Google’s Android operating system.

An earlier version of this story compared the compatibility Lego is touting with Skylanders saying that some action figures in the series aren’t compatible with new versions. That is indeed not the case, according to Actvision.