The world of the Transformers is no stranger to collaborations, crossovers, and tie-ins. Nor, as it happens, is Overwatch 2, the first-person hero-based shooter from Blizzard Entertainment, a part of Activision Blizzard, the one-time publisher of Transformers titles such as Devastation and War for Cybertron.
Does that mean anything? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. But keep it in your back pocket, I guess.
Anyway, those folks rolled out a trailer for a new collaboration that begins today, and features some of our favorite robots in disguise as skins (for the gamer illiterate, that’s basically like “costumes”) for a quartet of pre-existing characters from the game. Check ’em out:
Now, as I don’t really know a whole lot about Overwatch 2, I’m deferring to Polygon to inform you that the roles seem to be distributed as follows: Bastion (who the site describes as a “Triple Changer”) is Bumblebee, Illari is Arcee, Reinhardt is Optimus Prime, and Ramattra gets to be the sole Decepticon, Megatron.
For what it’s worth, Overwatch 2 principle artist Mike Hardison explained on SMOKAT that these are the Overwatch 2 characters cosplaying as the characters, rather than the actual characters themselves. That said, there is a little more meat to this crossover than just everyone playing dress-up, as they also released a free digital comic online called “Transmission” that shows Megatron establishing a trade with Ramattra: He gets Cybertronian tech in exchange for Megatron using him as an avatar in this world. Naturally, the Autobots can’t have that, and so the race is on to find new heroes to which they can lend their aid.
So… maybe these costumes are actually — say it with me — more than meets the eye?
Right.
So, anyway. If you play the game (it’s free on Nintendo Switch, Steam for PC, Xbox One/Series X|S, and PlayStations 4 & 5), for those interested by this), the costumes will be available starting today, July 9th, 2024. And if past crossovers, specifically the recent Cowboy Bebop, are anything to go by, they aren’t cheap. Those went for 2,500 Overwatch coins, or roughly $25/£21.
Oh, and that’s each, by the way. So kiss your favorite picture of Ben Franklin (or whatever the equivalent would be in other countries) good-bye if you decide to go all the way in on this.
If you’d like to discuss this with other fans on our forums… well, we don’t really have an Overwatch thread, sequelized or otherwise. We do have this Activision Blizzard thread in our “Fun & Games” section, though. It hasn’t really been touched since the company laid off nearly 2,000 employees at the start of the year, so this might be a way to liven it up, yeah? No? Well, you can start a separate thread, if that’s your whim. In the Transformers Discussion section, perhaps? The trailer is kinda anime-ish, so PrimalxConvoy shared it in the “Japanese Transformers News” thread, even though that’s about as far as the relevance goes.
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