Many trading card games don’t make it more than a year, and Disney Lorcana is about to hit its third anniversary this August. Incredibly, time has flown in overdrive, and we’re on our 12th Lorcana set, titled Wilds Unknown. Centered on a dangerous jungle and other locations, this 200+-card set is notable for ushering in Pixar representation for the first time.
In addition to Toy Story characters, *Brave *and The Incredibles have also made it in, giving the set a fresh feel, as if it’s heralding a new era for the game. For years now, fans have been asking about Pixar characters, and the floodgates are open, with much more to come down the line.
We spoke to Brian Godlewski (Director, Product Design, Disney Consumer Products) and Levi Dodd (Senior Game Designer at Ravensburger) to get the scoop on how Pixar characters made their way into Lorcana, and what makes this new set really tick.
Toy Story was a formative movie for many people of any age, but it was also incredibly important for Pixar itself. Not only did it kick off a new era of computer-animated film, but it was also a deeply personal story that meant a lot to the studio. Getting right to it, I wanted to ask whether it was unanimous that Toy Story would lead the Pixar charge in Lorcana.
According to Dodd, Toy Story was an obvious pick: “Toy Story was everyone’s first pick for an introduction of Pixar- inspired glimmers to Disney Lorcana TCG, it just made too much sense. Yes, it’s very iconic, but we also felt that the toy characters bring us a lot of fun possibilities into the world of Lorcana.”
Godlewski agrees: “Toy Story was the best choice for a Pixar debut in Disney Lorcana because Toy Story was Pixar’s first animated feature film. The wonderful thing about the Toy Story franchise is that the characters play out different scenarios and stories within the films from Buzz Lightyear battling Zurg to Woody chasing down evil Dr. Porkchop. The mix of characters plays perfectly into the world of Lorcana. Additionally, we also wanted to include other beloved films like Brave and The Incredibles, alongside Toy Story, as part of Pixar’s debut.”
As for how Pixar slots into Lorcana in general, it was a perfect fit, says Dodd: “We felt that glimmers inspired by The Incredibles and Brave were great fits for the story of Wilds Unknown and rounded out the set well. Since we are exploring the wilderness of Lorcana, many characters from Brave were a very natural fit, with many tough and explorer glimmers coming from it.”
He continues: “The inclusion of glimmers from The Incredibles is what we like to call a surprise and delight. You wouldn’t naturally associate them with the wilderness, but that kind of surprise can be a lot of fun when it works well with the characters. In a similar way we think many glimmers from Monsters Inc. will fit well into the story of the next set, Attack of the Vine!, but you’ll have to wait and see for that one.”
Shifting gears a bit, I mentioned how I wouldn’t mind seeing Pixar peppered into every set, and there’s some good news on that front, says Dodd: “I’m right there with you! I’m a huge Pixar Animation Studios fan and hope to include glimmers from their stories in every set I can from here forward. Of course, we still need to be sure we pick glimmers that fit the narrative of each of these sets, but stories from Pixar have a wonderful variety of characters to choose from, so I’m confident you’ll see them a lot in the future.”
Mechanically, it’s important that these new characters fit as well, which Godlewski says is incredibly important to the design team: “We use the theme of the set to help guide our character choices, as well as game play mechanics, since we want each set to be playable with the other sets. We work closely with the Disney Lorcana game designers as it can be difficult to narrow down which characters we want to use. But we always try to have a good mix of more popular characters, as well as deep-cut characters.”
One thing that always manages to wow me about Lorcana is the art. It’s one of the best in the TCG business, and curious about how they source their art, I inquired about the process. Dodd was happy to oblige: “It’s all down to the hard work of Shane Hartley, Vice President of Creative at Ravensburger, and his team who find and work with these amazing artists. They all worked together with Disney Consumer Products to first create this wonderful and magical world and are still tirelessly working to sustain the look-and-feel the fans fell in love with all the way back in The First Chapter.”
Godlewski also chimes in to explain how this all came together: “Ravensburger was essential in building a team of talented artists, many of which have worked for Disney in some capacity. They’re some of the most skilled artists in the industry. Because we work on 8-10 sets of Disney Lorcana TCG at once, we are constantly needing additional artists to generate the vast volume of card art required. I’d love to highlight one of our own artists, Leslie Strock. Before she was brought on to our Disney team, she designed a Moana & Pua card for the Winterspell series, which is one of my personal favorites.”
As for the timing, Toy Story debuting right before Toy Story 5 hits theaters is more than fortuitous. Godlewski explains that these sorts of things are sometimes happy accidents: “We don’t plan our sets around new releases due to our scheduling and development process. However, sometimes it just works out perfectly with franchises and new film releases, as in the cases of Toy Story and Zootopia.”
When it comes to future characters, nothing is seemingly off the table, according to Godlewski: “We’re able to use almost all Disney and Pixar characters in the Disney Lorcana TCG. We are very fortunate to have more than 100 years of content, which gives us a multitude of characters to choose from. This allows us to find the best characters to fit within the Lorcana world.”
Wilds Unknown is officially out as of May 15, so if you’re a Pixar fan, you can pick up the first Pixar set now. You won’t have to wait much longer for the next Pixar outing, as the next set debuts cards for Monsters, Inc.
Next up for Lorcana is Attack of the Vine, which is slated for the third quarter of 2026, followed by Hyperia City in the fourth quarter of the year. Attack of the Vine stands out because of The Great Hunny Rescue box, which is the third co-op product for Lorcana after the Deep Trouble (Ursula) and Palace Heist (Jafar) boxes. The more PVE experiences card game companies can add, the better.
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Ryan Miller, Steve Warner
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