Skylanders: Swap Force Dark Edition Starter Pack

Five figures dipped in shadow, and suddenly you're the collector every Skylanders kid envied. The Skylanders: Swap Force Dark Edition Starter Pack for Wii U was a GameStop exclusive that replaced the standard roster with dark-themed variants of Wash Buckler, Blast Zone, Slobber Tooth, Spyro, and Stealth Elf. Throw in a character poster, five sticker sheets with secret codes, and five trading cards, and you've got a starter pack that was designed to feel like contraband from the start.

The Dark Edition figures are where the real collector value lives. These weren't repainted shelf fillers. The dark variants carried a visual identity that set them apart from every other Skylanders figure in circulation, and because they were locked behind a single retailer, the supply was controlled from day one.

That retail exclusivity has only gotten sharper with time. The poster deserves a mention too. Unlike later Dark Edition posters, the Swap Force version included collections from the two previous games, making it the largest collection poster packed into any Skylanders starter set.

For Skylanders completionists, that's not a footnote. That's a grail sheet. On Wii U, where the toys-to-life genre actually thrived thanks to the GamePad's NFC reader, the Dark Edition Starter Pack feels right at home.

It's the definitive way to start Swap Force if your collection doesn't do things halfway.