“Do you like Transformers?” When I was in grade school, I remember being asked this question by the kid sitting next to me while we waited for our Tae Kwon Do class to start. This was the mid 80s, when the Transformers cartoon and toys were everywhere. That question was pretty much rhetorical with kids at the time. It wasn’t so much a question of “Do you like Transformers?” as it was a question of “Who is your favorite Transformer character?”.
Flash forward to today, and these robots are still so prevalent in my life, perhaps even more so now more than ever. That’s why I’m thrilled to announce that Niantic is partnering with Hasbro and TOMY on our next real-world mobile game: “TRANSFORMERS: Heavy Metal.”
In thinking about franchises that would be incredible to bring to life in AR, Transformers was a no-brainer. This will be a Transformers game unlike any other, an AR game where you’ll get to team up with the likes of Bumblebee and the Autobots in the real world, powered by the Niantic Lightship platform.
We’ve been working super hard on this with Seattle-based Very Very Spaceship as the development studio. We’ll enter soft launch in select countries soon, and global launch is planned for later this year.
We hope you’re as excited as we are to get to play in the Transformers universe. Keep an eye on TransformersHeavyMetal.com for future news updates and to pre-register for the game.
And in case you’re wondering, my favorite Transformer is Optimus Prime!
-Phil Hong, Executive Producer