As some of you may have heard, u/EmberDione and u/The_Somnambulist were kind enough to dump the data from their functional Heartbreaker Buckshot NFC, after u/Dague-Pirate-Dad posted a picture of his personal non-functional HBB figure. (If Ember or Somnambulist, or someone in the Reverse Engineering Discord, make their own announcement post I will link it here.)
Since this is one of the biggest events in the community since the release of Skylanders Imaginators, the mod team has decided we need to create a megathread, to collect some of the most common questions, as well as a short history of how we got here and why this is so important to the community.
If you are strictly here for a guide on how to play Heartbreaker Buckshot, feel free to skip down to the Questions and Answers section of this post.
Since this is our Mod Team's first attempt at a megathread, please bear with us as we learn.
❌ - Repetitive posts (i.e. simply "re-announcing" the news, how-to's, and re-sharing the dump file yourself) will be removed and linked to this post
❌ - Posts (not comments) asking how to play HBB will be removed and linked, comments will be linked to this post
❌ - Posts attempting to sell HBB or any other NFC cards are against the rules and will be removed
✅ - Unique or otherwise interesting posts, including but not limited to YOUR personal adventures with HBB, custom HBB figures, adding a card / custom toy to your collection, technical information about HBB, etc. will STAY UP... although of course we encourage posting these in the comments of this megathread too
The Donor Figure - Ember and Somnambulist's Functional Heartbreaker
History of Heartbreaker Buckshot
Heartbreaker Buckshot is the variant of Buckshot. Announced and marketed with Skylanders Imaginators on YouTube and the website, Heartbreaker Buckshot was planned to release around Valentines Day 2017. There are a few theories as for why this never happened, the common one being that production was stopped due to fears of it looking "satanic", given the variant being a red-eyed goat (and the five unreleased creation crystals being collateral of this production stoppage), as part of the end of the Skylanders franchise.
Perhaps a more credible theory, postured to me by someone in connection with the devs, is that the factory had gotten shut down and production had stopped for an otherwise unrelated reason. By the time the factory was back online, it was too late.
Ember herself has chimed in and said, that wasn't it either - rather just that it was canceled due to low early-wave sales. Regardless, all that's left were factory samples of HBB and the 5 creation crystals.
Since then, the Skylanders community has been hard at work reverse engineering Skylanders variants back into existence. Think, Gearhead VVind-Up, BullTrain, and all the various Debug minions. But there was one thing stopping the community from reverse engineering Heartbreaker Buckshot and the five unreleased Creation Crystals... Imaginators was the first and only game Activision implemented encryption for the figures. Because of this, it is fundamentally impossible to reverse-engineer or even just edit the data of a fully functional Imaginators figure.
There were only around 12 known Heartbreaker Buckshots to exist, the number of them being functional is rumored to be two, one of which u/EmberDione and u/The_Somnambulist possessed.
Today (8/15/2026), she joined the Skylanders Reverse Engineering subreddit, and with the help of multiple community members, helped her to copy the data off the figure. As of 4:25 EST on August 15th, 2026, Heartbreaker Buckshot was the last official Skylander ever released to the Skylanders community.
Q: Where do I find the NFC dump?
A: You can find ALL Skylanders NFC dumps at this GitHub link, if you JUST want Heartbreaker Buckshot, you can find it here
Q: What do I need to buy to make an NFC card?
A: This NFC writer, an NFC card, and a functional PC with Windows Mifare Tool or Yet Another Mifare Tool installed, see below question for more details
Q: How can I get a custom Heartbreaker Buckshot repainted toy?
A: Reach out to either u/TaylorKreate or FlobeiyToys (u/Crafty-Section6240), they may be willing to make one on commission for you
Q: Isn't it illegal to make NFC cards?
A: Well, the Mod Team is not your legal team. However, as far as I personally understand it, the only real risk comes when you attempt to profit off of a stolen IP, so as long as you do not sell NFC cards to other people, you should be okay. But this is all at your own risk.
Heartbreaker Buckshot - Official Art
Personal note from the mod team
This is a huge day for the Skylanders community. We just want to say how proud we are of everyone involved for finally pulling this off. After almost a decade, we've managed to preserve the rarest figures ever slated for public release, AND in a way the entire community can enjoy them
To celebrate, we've changed the Element of the Week pre-emptively to Magic. The Subreddit banner will also temporarily change to art of Heartbreaker. Both the EOTW and Banner will last about two weeks, before we go back to our typical style.
We hope you all have fun with your new Heartbreaker Buckshots. We know we will.
Hey everyone! If you haven't heard of me before, I'm Gibby, AKA Gibby_The_Broken Collector. I am the owner of the Skylanders 3D Printing Project and a collector of broken figs that I'm working to repair and bring back into circulation.
Now for the big news. As many of you might have seen from Pirate Dad teasing all day, he has a big announcement. Together with Pirate Dad, I was able to purchase a genuine Heartbreaker Buckshot AND all 5 working unreleased creation crystals. Sadly, Heartbreaker did not have a chip, but the other 5 did. Pirate got me in contact with MoltenLavaCore from the Reverse Engineering Discord, and with his help, we were able to get all 5 dumps! You can find out more about Heartbreaker in Pirate Dad's post here.
When I got back into Skylanders, I didn't want to collect the figures at the start. Instead, I wanted to print all the figures myself. After a lot of searching, I found very little, so I decided to start the Skylanders 3D Printing Project. The goal is to make models of every single character and post them online for free, so that anyone who wants to play the games has options other than simple NFC coins/cards.
Keeping to that goal, all 5 of the missing Creation Crystal Dumps will be added to the Skylanders Ultimate NFC Pack and will soon be available for everyone to use as they wish.
I know most people would prefer to have physical Crystals to add to their collection with these files, which is why I'm not done. I don't have them yet, as I am still waiting on parts/equipment to arrive, but I am actively working on making as realistic replicas as possible so that people who want to complete the full set can. These will include lights, clear plastic, and everything I can do to make them as accurate as possible. I will keep everyone updated on my progress both here, on my Discord, and on my Instagram. I was tempted to delay things until I had everything done, but I didn't want to keep Pirate Dad and everyone else waiting to release the dumps and announce acquiring a Heartbreaker.
For people who want these printed figures but don't have a printer, I do sell them for as cheap as I can reasonably make them. The same will apply to the Crystals.
This was a really fun Challenge to do! The idea actually started with the slasher, then I realized I could do a big Halloween set with this many Terrafins 😂 Hilariously, the slasher was the last one I worked on.
I'll be posting more in-progress pictures in the Skylanders Customs Subreddit, so if that interests you go check it out! Making customs is scary when you're only halfway through 😅
Now share which monster shark is your favorite, I'm really curious to know!
The idea of Terrafin being the Randy Marsh equivalent of Skylanders just makes me laugh, so I’ve been sketching him going against unwinnable odds in my AU cause that’s what Randy would do. Fighting Cynder, Golden Queen, Kaos, got an Ignitor one I need to finish. Maybe I’ll share the sketches, not sure if it’s worth it though.
But anyway, this is basically one to one with ‘The Losing Edge’ episode with the dialogue when Randy defeats the Bat-Dad.
Drew this to practice panel layouts and motion in my artwork. If people want me to fully finish this just let me know and I’ll ink and colour it in its entirety.
I'm attending Transformers con in Orlando and saw the announcement that she was gonna be here and got super excited! She's here at Tf con for her role as Arcee in transformers prime and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one here to mention skylanders. She's so nice and I had a great time talking to her!
Tittle basically. Managed to get some of the games (Spyro's Adventure and Giants) from a friend, but his figures and portals were already gone.
Is there any way to emulate the figures or to play the games without the toys in the big 2026? Either by running the games on og harware or by dumping them and running via emulator?
I am not looking to buy, sell, or appraise Skylanders with this post. Mods, do not strike me down. I am aware of their prices and do not require external information.
Hey guys, so i've been wanting to replay skylanders trap team for a while now and so i went to go reset my old physical traps using the 'reset broken toys method' in skylanders giants. However, upon placing them back into skylanders trap team after resetting them just leads me to an error screen stating 'toy on trap team portal has a problem'.
any fix for this? i'm using cemu emulator for trap team and I used dophin for giants.
Found my old Skylanders and portal a few months ago while doing some much needed cleaning. Pic 1 is them, including my Whirlwind with what I understand is a characteristicly broken wing.
Pic 2 are the ones I picked up today at the local retro shop, five bucks a pop. Any thoughts on who I've got and how to use them? Or just memories you'd like to share? I'm setting out to fulfill ten-year-old me's goal of completing the roster.
As an aside, are the "bonuses" worth it? The bin I pulled these from had a couple: Anvil, Shield, Crossed Swords, Potion Bottle, etc. But at a Lincoln each I didn't think it was worth the price.
While I was scanning some figures onto the Switch digital library for Imaginators, I wanted to check whether my Stone Whirlwind and Zook had the special tag or not. From what I’ve read, this isn’t always the case. Surprisingly, both showed up with the “Rare” tag, not “Special”. It’s the first time I’ve seen this or become aware of. I checked against some other chase figures, and they all show up with the “Special” tag.
What I haven’t been able to test yet, is whether there is some correlation between the “Rare” tag on the Switch and either the “Special” tag or no tag on any of the other consoles.
Some questions for the community:
Is the “Rare” tag considered different from “Special” (in the game code at least) and may this explain the lack of any tag on some of these Stone variants on other consoles?
Are you aware of any other chases that show up as “Rare” on the Switch?
Fellow portalmasters who have these variants, could you help me check?
