The games take place in the Skylands, a realm of floating islands located at the center of the universe that is often threatened by evil forces who seek to rule it and gain access to all worlds.

The player, who is considered to be a Portal Master, commands the Skylanders to stop Kaos and other evil threats.

Each Skylander is associated with one of ten elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Magic, Tech, Life, Undead, Light, and Dark.

The Skylanders seek to restore the Core of Light, which Kaos destroyed, by collecting the Eternal Sources of each element and other components.

Swap Force is the third installment in the franchise and takes place in another part of Skylands called the Cloudbreak Islands.

Together, the Swap Force and the Skylanders fight to prevent Kaos and his mother from ruining the performance on Mount Cloudbreak.

It introduces a new group of Skylanders called the SuperChargers, who pilot special vehicles of the Land, Sky and Sea.

This racing game mode, however, is near impossible to play with other players (in 2024) The Nintendo console versions feature Donkey Kong and Bowser as Turbo Charge Donkey Kong and Hammer Slam Bowser, along with their respective vehicles, the Barrel Blaster and Clown Cruiser.

Launching Skylanders cost Activision $100 million or more, roughly as much as making, manufacturing and marketing a title such as Call of Duty.

The first two games were developed with the Nintendo Wii in mind, with the HD versions being ports with slightly enhanced graphics.

In contrast, starting with Swap Force, the games were developed for the HD consoles, with the Wii version having heavily downgraded graphics.

The Nintendo Switch version of Imaginators does not use the Portal of Power; instead, the figures are scanned using the NFC on the game controller.

Cavan Scott wrote a series of books, beginning with Skylanders: The Machine of Doom, which takes place before the events of Spyro's Adventure.

IDW Publishing created a comic series associated with the Skylanders franchise which takes place in between games.

In 2016, it was announced that Activision Blizzard Studios would produce an animated television series based on Skylanders.

Nevertheless, future projects within the Skylanders universe were limited to the recent mobile game titled Ring of Heroes until its closure in 2022.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick stated that Microsoft had interest in reviving some of the old studios' hit franchises, including Guitar Hero and Skylanders.

GameSpot gave it a 7.5 out of 10, praising its family-friendly gameplay and role-playing-style character progression, but criticized the lack of online multiplayer, the cost of buying a complete set of figures, the arbitrary inclusion of Spyro, and the unreliability of the Portal of Power peripheral.

"[46] Giant Bomb reviewer Jeff Gerstmann gave the game four out of five stars, stating, "Skylanders is probably aimed at kids, but whatever.

[26] However, the reviews in general were slightly lower than that of the previous game, especially for the Nintendo 3DS version, which received the lowest Metacritic score in the series.

[49] PlayStation Lifestyle, however, gave the game a lower score with a 70/100, saying, "The reality is that Skylanders: Giants is age-appropriate fun that harkens back to the delight you had collecting Pokémon cards or mashing your way through a dungeon crawler.