Okay, before we go any further: Read our previous story to get yourself caught up, because I don’t feel like repeating myself in the second consecutive front-page story because they couldn’t have just done this earlier.

Got the gist? Good.

Today, Activision Blizzard decided to roll out a second trailer, featuring actual gameplay of their characters cosplaying as Cybertronians in action. Have a gander:

If you’d like to discuss this with other fans on our forums… well, as I said before (verbatim), 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.

Not a member? Register now! It’s totally free, save for that teeny little fragment of your Spark that helps sustain our existence! If forums aren’t your bag and you’re more of a social media kid, then you can find us on SMOKAT (that’s the Social Media Once Known As Twitter — just you wait, this’ll catch on better than “X” ever will) @AllsparkNews. Or you can do your web-slinging Into and Across the Metaverse to find our Facebook page, Facebook Group, and Instagram! Or you can go Beyond the Metaverse, and join us on our Discord, Discord.gg/allspark, where our operators are standing by to serve you!

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:

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.

Not a member? Register now! It’s totally free, save for that teeny little fragment of your Spark that helps sustain our existence! If forums aren’t your bag and you’re more of a social media kid, then you can find us on SMOKAT (that’s the Social Media Once Known As Twitter — just you wait, this’ll catch on better than “X” ever will) @AllsparkNews. Or you can do your web-slinging Into and Across the Metaverse to find our Facebook page, Facebook Group, and Instagram! Or you can go Beyond the Metaverse, and join us on our Discord, Discord.gg/allspark, where our operators are standing by to serve you!

While the fate of Transformers: Reactivated remains unknown, and the state of Hasbro’s initiative to get the now Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard back catalog of Transformers titles re-released is anyone’s guess, Outright Games announced today a new entrant in the digital arena of battles between Autobots and Decepticons.

As the story goes, the evil Nemesis Prime has stolen the Prime Relics, leading to both Autobot and Decepticon alike to set out on an adventure to recover the artifacts and take control of the “incredible powers” they can grant. Among those vying for the prize are, of course, mainstays such as Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, and Soundwave. Backing them up — or perhaps in it for their own reasons — are Autobots Arcee, Wheeljack, Elita-1, and Decepticons Flamewar, Shockwave, and Nightbird. And it looks like they’re all sporting their “Evergreen” designs.

They will race across “battle-race circuits” to collect the relics and beat their opponents as they race arcade-style in vehicle form and engage in combat in robot mode, all in an effort to defeat their enemies and make it to the finish line. Hmm, think Velocitron will play a part in this? Because this sounds like exactly the kind of game that planet was made for.

As players progress and collect relics, they’ll be able to level up their skills and unlock new “iconic” playable characters and skins. Hopefully that means there are more characters than we’ve seen already, and not just that half the ones named above are locked away. After all, who wouldn’t want Hot Rod and Blurr to join Bumblebee on the track?

There are two game modes: Galactic Trials and Arcade. The former is the single-player mode where you’re out to collect relics, while the latter is where you can race locally with a friend in 2-player mode, create your own custom race tracks, characters, and weapons, or enter “location-based specialized tournaments.” Not quite sure what that means; is it based around a specific in-game location? Or do I have to hope they come to Toronto in order to participate?

“As TRANSFORMERS celebrates its 40th year alongside the theatrical premiere of its first fully CG-animated film, TRANSFORMERS ONE, we are proud to continue our collaboration with Outright Games to unveil an epic journey that speaks to the enduring legacy of the iconic brand,” said Eugene Evans, SVP Digital Strategy and Licensing at Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro. “With immersive gameplay, and a storyline that resonates with fans old and new, TRANSFORMERS: Galactic Trials is sure to ignite excitement. Through this all-new TRANSFORMERS racing experience, we continue to expand our digital offerings through strategic licensing and internal development and we can’t wait for TRANSFORMERS fans to see what else we have in store.”

Outright Games has formed a track record of publishing Transformers games, which includes Transformers: Battlegrounds and Transformers: Earthspark – Expedition, among other licensed titles. The developer, 3DClouds, doesn’t have quite the same track record with the license, but we’ll see how they do when the Matrix of Gamership is passed to them when they release Transformers: Galactic Trials on October 11th, 2024, on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Steam for PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

Until then, you can discuss this upcoming prospect in the “Transformers Galactic Trials: new console game” thread in our forums!

Not a member? Register now! It’s totally free, save for that teeny little fragment of your Spark that helps sustain our existence! If forums aren’t your bag and you’re more of a social media kid, then you can find us on SMOKAT (that’s the Social Media Once Known As Twitter — just you wait, this’ll catch on better than “X” ever will) @AllsparkNews. Or you can do your web-slinging Into and Across the Metaverse to find our Facebook page, Facebook Group, and Instagram! Or you can go Beyond the Metaverse, and join us on our Discord, Discord.gg/allspark, where our operators are standing by to serve you!

From the press release:

TRANSFORMERS: EARTHSPARK – Expedition was recently showcased at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany and San Diego Comic-Con where it was first made playable to fans of all ages. This new trailer shows off the explosive action and expansive environments found in the game, as well as a deeper look at some of the epic missions players will be able to undertake.

Have a look-see for yourself:

In TRANSFORMERS: EARTHSPARK – Expedition, players take control of Bumblebee, as they battle across diverse biomes, defeat enemy Decepticons, unlock new abilities and learn devastating combos. Other iconic characters from the TRANSFORMERS universe will make an appearance to help or hinder Bumblebee on his quest, including Optimus Prime, Grimlock, Skullcruncher, Nova Storm, Skywarp, and more!

Sadly, there’s no sign of the heart and soul of the show, the “Maltobots,” aka the Terrans and their human family, the Maltos. Hopefully we’ll get to see them pop up at some point before the game’s release. Granted, they’ll probably just be in cutscenes, but still. As cool as this version of Bumblebee is, it would be a shame if his protegees were to miss out on the action.

But maybe they’re in one of these screenshots? Have a look, and see if you can find any sign of Robby, Mo, Twitch, Thrash, Hashtag, Jawbreaker, or Nightshade:

In addition to the new trailer and assets, we also have a previously-unannounced release date for you. Transformers: Earthspark – Expedition comes to Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC on October 13th, 2023.

And if you missed the original announce trailer from a couple of months ago, check it out:

What do you think? Does it look any better to you now than it did then? Or do you think it could still use some work? Talk about it in the “Transformers: Earthspark” thread on our forums!

Not a member? Register now! It’s totally free, save for that teeny little fragment of your Spark that helps sustain our existence! If forums aren’t your bag and you’re more of a social media kid, then you can find us on SMOKAT (that’s the Social Media Once Known As Twitter — just you wait, this’ll catch on better than “X” ever will) @AllsparkNews. Or you can do your web-slinging Into and Across the Metaverse to find our Facebook page, Facebook Group, and Instagram! Or you can go Beyond the Metaverse, and join us on our Discord, Discord.gg/allspark, where our operators are standing by to serve you!

While we never outright said that they were lost, a lot of headlines in articles on other sites have suggested that over the past few days. Hasbro has reached out to let us know the following:

“To clarify, comments that suggest TRANSFORMERS games have been lost were made in error. We apologize to Activision and regret any confusion; they’ve been great partners, and we look forward to future opportunities to work together.”

Activision themselves even commented on the rumor that the games were lost.  Chief Commercial Officer and Executive VP of Corporate Affairs at Activision, Lulu Cheng Meservey tweeted the following:

With the toys now showing up on the shelves, will we see these games return soon?

Be sure to discuss this in our forum thread! Want to interact with more Transformers fans? Register for an account on our forums today! Be sure to Follow us on Twitter @AllsparkNews and Give our Facebook page a like as well as our Instagram! Not a fan of Forums? Check out our Facebook Group and discuss with us your thoughts on the discord Discord.gg/allspark

According to Game Rant, Hasbro has talked about its previous games coming to Game Pass now that Activision is being bought by Microsoft.  While the games, like War for Cybertron and others, were delisted from places like Steam and other digital storefronts when Activision’s licensing deal expired in December of 2017, maybe this is a hint that Microsoft and Hasbro are in talks to bring these fan favorite games back. That would certain mesh with the upcoming Transformers Studio Series Gamer Edition figures. Stay tuned for more details as we get them.

Be sure to discuss this in our forum thread! Want to interact with more Transformers fans? Register for an account on our forums today! Be sure to Follow us on Twitter @AllsparkNews and Give our Facebook page a like as well as our Instagram! Not a fan of Forums? Check out our Facebook Group and discuss with us your thoughts on the discord Discord.gg/allspark