First details on Disney’s Epic Mickey

It’s been talked about a lot, but now Disney Interactive Studios is ready to divulge some details on Disney Epic Mickey. The game is an adventure-platformer with some light role-playing elements and is being developed for the Wii. The game stars Mickey Mouse as re-imagined by Dues Ex designer Warren Spector and his Junction Point game development studio. Spector, who is a self-described Disney fan, taps into the history, worlds, and characters related to Disney’s favorite mouse to create an “edgy and unexpected cartoon adventure.”

“Mickey is an adventurous and rambunctious mouse,” said Warren Spector, creative director and vice president, Junction Point. “I want to bring his personality to the forefront, place him in a daunting world and connect his spirited character with video game players worldwide. Ultimately, each player decides for him- or herself what makes Mickey cool.”

In the game’s fiction, a sorcerer named Yen Sid creates a world where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations thrive. Originally, the sorcerer from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in Walt Disney’s 1940 film “Fantasia” was nicknamed “Yen Sid” by Disney animators, although never named as such on screen. In Spector’s game, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit - Walt Disney’s first cartoon star created in 1927 - becomes the earliest inhabitant of Yen Sid’s Cartoon Wasteland after Mickey Mouse is created.

Oswald makes the Cartoon Wasteland comfortable for the retired characters as they join him in this magical land, but Oswald is unhappy; as time passes Oswald becomes resentful of popularity. When Mickey stumbles upon Yen Sid’s map, he makes a terrible mistake and inadvertently devastates Oswald’s comfortable world. Eventually, Mickey’s mistake pulls him deep into the mysterious Cartoon Wasteland to face the destruction he unknowingly created. It’s the Cartoon Apocalypse. Repent and put away your anvils.

Players use the Wii Remote to wield magical paint and thinner to re-shape the world around them. Paint’s creativity and thinner’s damaging effect give the player tools and empowers them to make choices about how they move through the world. Each player’s decisions to use paint, thinner or both dynamically changes the world with consequences that affect the environment, interactions with other characters, and even Mickey’s appearance and abilities.

Disney Epic Mickey is slated for a fall 2010 release. You can find out more by visiting www.disney.com/disneyepicmickey.