Toy soldier is a great game, and Signal studios have done it proud.

Signal Studios and Ubisoft have just announced a new game “Toy Soldiers: War Chest. War Chest is the third? game in the Toy Soldiers series. It’s a little hard to be exact here, because Signal have already released a “Third” game in early access for that series - Toy Soldiers Complete. Complete, although being a standalone game, does not exactly qualify as a sequel because it’s made entirely of content from the previous two games: Toy soldiers, and Toy Soldiers Cold War, and their DLC: Kaiser’s Battle, Invasion!, Evil Empire, and Napalm, all combined in one game.

So “Complete” is the complete collection. Other games have done this before, although DoW had a slightly better method allowing its “sequels” to be stand-alones and yet still work with each other. But I guess that takes a lot of forward planning and clever coding to accomplish. So Signal have opted for another method and are programming a “new” game out of the assets of earlier ones.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that what Sequal are doing with “Complete” is a great idea, especially as the second game “Cold War”, has never been available on PC before (previously released for Xbox only, no idea why, but c’est la vie).

However the appearance of another new game (before Complete is even complete) does throw a spanner in the works somewhat. Fans of Toy Soldiers, after purchasing the previous titles, and then purchasing them again for the sake of playing with all their toys together, are being goaded by the images of the new toys that won’t be in their new toy box, only in the new, new toy box. This also means that Complete is no longer complete either.

Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, especially when you consider that Complete is currently on sale for £3.50, and even at £7, the game is a bargain. But here’s the thing, as soon as Ubisoft stick their nose in, things start to smell fishy. War Chest is a proper sequel, because it adds new content, keeps the best stuff that worked well before, and (we’re told) will add some new game modes too.

But there's one more thing that doesn’t smell right. Despite including many of the older factions seen previously, not all of them have been included. The Brits for instance have been left out, maybe they were unpopular, maybe this was deliberate, but if the Brits do turn up later, as part of a DLC, then we know we’ve been playing the UBISOFT game once again.

Still, we’re getting some great new toys and franchises for our favourite toy box. I freakin love Skeletor, he’s so cute I just want to rub that shiny noggin, not to mention GI Joe too. But franchises cost moneh; lots of moneh. So I can kind of see why Signal needed Ubisoft, not that I know the details of their deal but maybe it was worth it. And hey, I bet it won’t cost you too much to get the new game too. Totally worth it, and if you’re still in doubt just look at Skeletor’s cute little face and repeat to yourself, “It’s OK. I want to be like you, I do.”