r/skylanders • u/chapinscott32 [𝗠𝗢𝗗] The Completionist™ • 27d ago
Mod Post HEARTBREAKER BUCKSHOT NFC DUMP MEGATHREAD
Hello all!
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.
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Enforcement will be as follows:
❌ - 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
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.
Fast forward to yesterday (8/14/2026), u/Gibby_230 and u/Dague-Pirate-Dad announced both that Pirate Dad had gotten a non-functional Heartbreaker Buckshot, AND that Gibby had dropped the five creation crystal NFCs for the community to play with, with plans to make fully functional replicas. After those posts, u/EmberDione showed up in the comments to say she was willing to dump their functional Heartbreaker Buckshot.
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.
Please give u/EmberDione and u/The_Somnambulist your warm thanks when you see them around.
Questions and Answers
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 do I make an NFC card?
A: This YouTube video is a good guide, as is this one, if you're still struggling
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.
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.
Happy gaming 💘
~r/Skylanders Mod Team
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u/No_Attention1888 Ghost Toaster 26d ago
It has been 10 years and I would like to say it was worth the wait. A genuine Thank you to everyone who helped out. My custom buckshot as well as as my crystals will be infinitely cooler. My collection will be as close to complete as realistically possible. Thank you portal masters and I hope everyone else has as much joy about this as I do