It’s been a good while since we last got a proper Transformers video game, with the four years since the XCOM-ish Transformers: Battlegrounds in 2020 only seeing long-in-the-works MMO Transformers Online finally biting the dust. That’s about to change, with the reveal of a curious new combination of racer and roguelike starring the robots in disguise.
Transformers: Galactic Trials somehow marks the first time the vehicular bots have featured in a racing game, though as you might expect from a franchise known for switching between forms it’s not quite a pure driving experience, either.
Instead, developers 3DClouds are billing the game as a mixture of traditional racing game and action-RPG as the vehicular robots speed around tracks before shifting into their bot forms to fight through groups of enemies standing in the way of the finish line. There’ll apparently be roguelike progression in the form of Prime relics to collect to level up certain skills, while also unlocking extra characters – both Autobots and Decepticons – and skins for said characters.
Galactic Trials will launch with two modes: a titular single-player mode working through the 10 included levels and an Arcade offering with two-player local multiplayer in quick races, with the option to customise the available tracks, weapons and characters. “Location-based specialised tournaments” will also be a thing, though I’m honestly not sure how that translates to just two players being able to play in the same room – this might just be a word-salad way of saying that you can create bracket-based tournaments for bigger groups, perhaps.
2024 is apparently the Transformers series’ 40th anniversary, with Galactic Trials arriving on October 11th. After a relative drought of Transformers video games, there’s a chance we’ll see more of Splash Damage’s co-op shooter Transformers: Reactivate, too, after its planned closed beta slipped out of last year.