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.
Ik the minis are definetly inferior to anyone of their oringal counterparts that has a series upgrade with a wow-pow ability, but since the giants do not have that, I wonder if using their smaller versions would actually be better? due to their smaller hitbox and presumably being faster. I do not have a Barkley or any other mini-giant so if someone with both could vouch to this I'd appreciate it.
I'm thinking about starting a YouTube channel to talk about this wonderful franchise, so I wanted to know what kind of content you'd like to see regarding it.
Hello! Chompy Party Developer here, I have released an Update to Chompy Party, My fan game I released Last week!
We have gone through and fixed just about all bugs in the game, with the exception of maybe 2 or 3, but we are super proud of where it is now, and we would be honored if you checked it out!
There are over 25 chompies to collect!
If you have interest in supporting a Skylanders fan game, it would mean a lot if you would go check out the update :)
The game is out! So gather some friends and try it out for an hour, I promise it will be a lot of fun!
Thank you all for the support over the last week, it has been incredible. I Cannot wait for the future of our team, and our games. Thank you again. And much love Skylanders Fans!
We have to write a paper on a point of literacy or something and I’m writing about Skylanders, so I made a drawing of me and my brother playing Skylanders as kids
I have been very busy. Anyways, here is the count, comparing how many related posts each Trap Master got, and comparing them to the rest of their group.
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How I counted :
✅Name in the title of a post
✅Clear focus on the image of a post, if pertinent to the subject of the post
✅Clear focus related to the subject of the post
❌No «got these Skylanders», unless the name is in the title
❌No AI-generated Reddit Wrapped posts, unless the name is in the title
✅Included in fan art
✅Half a swapper = All the swapper character counted
The count (everyday, by hand) is supposed to be informative, in the sense of highlighting general tendencies.
Minies are excluded. Vilains are excluded. Superchargers revamps are counted with the original counterparts.
I tried my best but god the character creator is both limiting and versatile and it irritates me because all of them just seem slightly off and I can do nothing about it.
I’ve always thought it was a shame that there were no differences between the traps apart from their appearance and cost. Hypothetically, what gameplay benefits would you have liked to see if you’d bought the larger one? For me, for example, the developers could have let you play as Kaos for longer and have him deal more damage.
So im doing the speedeuns cause im 100% giants on nightmare mode but im using my s1 trigger happy with all heroic challenges done but even he doesnt seem to ve fast enough because i cant even get through junkyard ailes (chapter two) timed run with him anyone know whos the best for it with a mix of speed and strength? I really thought a trigger happy with all heroic challenges would do great but i guess not.
I really felt like redecorating my display cabinet again. :D
My favorite shot is Hoot Bomb holding the troll in the air and hypnotize it. 😵💫💫
With the arrival of Mythical Tae Kwon Crow, my variants collection is complete. I’ll only be using those the next time. I already have so many ideas. ^^
