Ubisoft is getting into the toys-to-life game with Starlink

As part of its E3 press conference today Ubisoft debuted Starlink: Battle for Atlas, a new multi-platform sci-fi game being developed by Ubisoft Toronto that's expected to release next year on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo's Switch.

Starlink is interesting in part because it's a new "toys-to-life" game announced a year after the implosion of Disney's popular Disney Infinity franchise, an event that pushed us to question the future of toys-to-life games as a viable business.

Also, Ubisoft Toronto looks likely to ask Starlink players to buy physical toys and sync them up with the game itself in intriguing ways.

While most games in the genre thus far have required players to purchase toys and sync them up with their console via some sort of standalone receptable (like a USB-powered "portal" pad that reads data from RFID chips in the toys), Starlink seems designed to have players buy moddable starship toys (so weapons can be swapped out, for example) that are then mounted to the player's gamepad via a custom attachment.