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Transformers: Reactivate

2025-10-25T18:43:29Z

Nembert: Added mention of the E3 2020 trailer, might need a bit of polishing but it is important to be included. Should it be mentioned the trailer was found?

{{videogame
|title=''Transformers: Reactivate''
|japanese=
|image= Transformers Reactivate Logo.png
|caption=Yeah, yeah, get your "Deactivated" jokes out of your system.
|prev=
|next=
|developer=[[Certain Affinity]] [[Splash Damage]]
|publisher=
|writer=[[Simon Furman]]<ref>{{citesocial|quote=I'm hearing the plug has officially been pulled on Splash Damage's #Transformers: Reactivate game. I've been contributing story, lore, character work & dialog to the project, alongside amazing teams and creatives. It could - and should - have been the best TF game ever. Very sad.|link=https://twitter.com/SimonFurman3/status/1877275986170986918|name=Simon Furman|site=Twitter|year=2025|month=01|day=09}}</ref>
|date=Cancelled
|platform=PC, [[PlayStation]] 4, PlayStation 5, [[Xbox]] One, Xbox Series X/S
}}

'''''Transformers: Reactivate''''' is a cancelled online multiplayer game developed by [[Splash Damage]]. It was announced in [[December]] [[2022]] via a teaser trailer that was pretty scant on details, with plans for a closed beta that would be happening [[soon]]. However, due to an infamously troubled development cycle, nothing of the game was shown outside of that teaser for another ''763 days'', leaving many to question the state of the project. The game was ultimately announced as cancelled in [[January]] [[2025]], seemingly existing as little more than vaporware to the world at large.

In truth, however, the story was much more complicated. Spending nearly seven long years in development hell across two developers, ''Reactivate'' was beset by multiple troubles that hampered progress, and the bulk of our knowledge about the game comes from anonymous development team members and leaks that showed more of the product than was ''ever'' officially confirmed, including playable characters, gameplay mechanics, and an attempted overall transition from a microtransaction-laden live service game to a premium AAA experience.

==Plot==
[[File: Transformers Reactivate screenshot20220812 06.jpeg|upright=1.4|thumb|"We can rebuild him."]]

{{note|The game's plot went through a few different incarnations, with several elements such as character names changed between story revisions, but the broad strokes stayed fairly consistent. The following is a rough summary of the plot at the time of the game's 2022 announcement, based on both official and unofficial sources.}}

{{quote|The gravest threat to [[human]]ity has arrived. And it's already won. [[Earth]] is no longer ours; it belongs to them. All we have left is our hope for the [[Autobot]]s, as we salvage them from the rubble left behind.|Official website}}

Earth is attacked by the Legion, an alien race whose nanomachine-based composition allows them to quickly recover from any injury. Realizing the threat at hand, the Autobots and [[Decepticons]] join forces, working with the humans to repel the invaders, but a massive [[EMP]] takes all the Transformers offline, leaving the humans to be quickly overwhelmed. Seventy years later, civilization is in ruins and humanity is on the brink of extinction. However, a small resistance force known as the Renegades continue to fight back, and have begun to recover and revive the derelict Transformers in the hopes they can help finally turn the tide of the war. With [[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]] both missing in action, the recently reactivated [[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] steps up to lead the survivors in a final campaign that will decide the fate of the planet.

==Featured characters==
{{note|Keep in mind that the game's character roster was very much in flux, and while each of these characters was in the game ''at some point'', they may have been removed in later builds. But considering there is no "final" roster, we've elected to list everyone we know of for completion's sake.}}
{{featuredcharacters|
|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
*[[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] ([[Robbie Daymond]])
*[[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]]
*[[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] ([[Jamieson Price]])
*[[Windblade (G1)|Windblade]]
*[[Hot Rod (G1)|Hot Rod]]
*[[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]]
*[[Powerglide (G1)|Powerglide]]
*[[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]]
*[[Elita One (G1)|Elita One]]
*[[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]]
*[[Cliffjumper (G1)|Cliffjumper]]
*[[Metroplex (G1)|Metroplex]]
|c2=
*[[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]
*[[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]] ([[Steve Blum]])
*[[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
**[[Laserbeak (G1)|Laserbeak]]
**[[Ravage (G1)|Ravage]]
**[[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]]
*[[Shockwave (G1)|Shockwave]]
*[[Slipstream (G1)|Slipstream]]
*[[Knock Out (G1)|Knock Out]]
*[[Horri-Bull]]
*[[Divebomb (G1)|Divebomb]]
|c3=
*Andrea/Cassandra Faireborn
*Delvin Winslow
*Markus Irving
*Presea Anand
|c4=
*Legion
*[[Quintesson]]s
|nonumbering=true}}

==Development history==
Calling the development of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' "tumultuous" would be like calling the Decepticons "kinda mean". From its quiet announcement to its ignominious end, the project went through a series of hardships throughout its development, much of which was never publicly confirmed; even now, the parties involved are still under strict NDA regarding the game, preventing them from making any substantial comments on the record. As a result, it's difficult to be 100% certain of exactly what happened...but we're going to try our best anyway. Thus, we've cobbled together the following summary of events from public announcements, various leaks, postmortem analyses, and other assorted sources in an attempt to paint a clearer picture of why this game was never released. Some details will inevitably be inaccurate due to the secrecy surrounding the game and the nature by which much of this information was obtained, but barring any sort of additional tell-all from other members of either development team, this is probably the closest we can get to the full story with the information we have available.

===In the beginning...===
Word of the game's existence first surfaced at the end of 2017, around the same time as [[Activision]]'s exclusivity deal with [[Hasbro]] to produce ''Transformers'' games came to an end. In Chinese holding company {{w|Leyou}}'s annual report for that year, they stated that they had entered into a licensing agreement with [[Hasbro]] back in August to produce a massively multiplayer online shooter based on the property, similar to their hit game ''{{w|Warframe}}'', and had tapped recently acquired American game studio {{w|Certain Affinity}} to develop it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20201118133639/https://www.files.services/files/359/2018/0420/20180420121501_95996174_en.pdf Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2017 Annual Report] (archived)</ref> Not much would be said about the project for most of the following year, presumably because work was still very early, though Certain Affinity CEO Max Hoberman stated in an August 2018 interview that the project was both their biggest to date and their first time utilizing the free-to-play games as a service (GaaS) model.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=There's multiple transitions that we're going through as a company as we prepare for this. In that sense, both the Transformers game and Last Expedition have been designed from the ground up to be games as a service, to be games that become people's hobbies that they play day in and day out, for months and years, and that we're continuously improving and enhancing.|link=https://venturebeat.com/games/certain-affinity-is-ready-for-the-limelight-with-games-as-a-service-model/|name=Max Hoberman|site=VentureBeat|year=2018|month=08|day=04}}</ref> Leyou also confirmed in their annual report for that year that the game's budget had increased from $15 million to $33 million.<ref>[https://docslib.org/doc/4334356/annual-report-2018-report-annual-contents Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2018 Annual Report] (archived)</ref>

The game was publicly announced by Leyou in August 2019 at the Chinajoy 2019 event, under the tentative title of ''Transformers Online'', and that it would be released for both PC and then-current consoles.<ref>[https://mmoculture.com/2019/08/leyou-ambitious-company-reveals-new-transformers-and-civilization-online-games/ Leyou – Ambitious company reveals new Transformers and Civilization online games – MMO Culture]</ref> This would be the main news about the game for the year, with nothing else of it mentioned by anyone involved aside from the fact that it was still being worked on. In the background around this time, [[Digital Domain]] was commissioned by to create a 60 second long internal trailer for investors, this trailer was later extended to 90 seconds for a reveal at E3 2020. Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, E3 that year was cancelled, leaving the trailer to never be released officially as it became outdated with the game's later reworks. In January of 2020, a former Certain Affinity employee was found to have listed "''Transformers: Impact''" on their résumé, suggesting that this was the game's real title.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/certain-affinitys-transformers-online.1167054/page-17#post-17886902 jungle penguins on TFW2005]</ref> Later in July, Leyou issued a press release stating that they had invested another $10 million into Certain Affinity to improve the game, and that an open beta period would be beginning [[soon]], with 70% of its "core gameplay" completed.<ref>[http://northeurope.blob.euroland.com/press-releases-attachments/1236288/HKEX-EPS_20200706_9346969-0.PDF Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref> A month later, Leyou made the announcement that British studio [[Splash Damage]], another developer under their purview, would be assisting with ''Impact''{{'}}s development going forward.<ref>[https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2020/0821/2020082100849.pdf Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref>

===Big changes===
Things would take a bit of a turn in August 2020 when Chinese media conglomerate Tencent made a bid to acquire Leyou for $1.5 billion, which would ultimately be finalized in December.<ref>[https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/tencent-officially-acquires-splash-damage-parent-leyou-in-1-5-billion-deal Tencent officially acquires Splash Damage parent Leyou in $1.5 billion deal — Game Developer]</ref> As a result of this, a handful of Leyou documents were made public, including what appeared to be early pitch slides for ''Transformers: Impact''. The slides described a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons over an alien superweapon called the Aegis, which is destroyed in the battle in a massive explosion that wipes out most of the Transformers; with the shards of the Aegis landing on Earth and starting to corrupt the planet, the remaining Autobots and Decepticons are forced to band together to survive. The presentation also elaborated on the gameplay loop, live service elements, and other plans, including the original planned release of Q4 2018 for early access and Q2 2019 for the full launch. Obviously, that didn't happen, leading to multiple date amendments in the presentation, with the most recent placing the hard deadline for launch as October 31, 2021 for the open beta, and April 30, 2022 for the full release; presumably Splash Damage was brought on to help make sure the project hit these dates.<ref>[https://wccftech.com/transformers-online-mix-destiny-warframe-targeting-october-2021/ Transformers Online Designed as a Mix of Destiny and Warframe, Targeting October 2021 for the Open Beta — WCCFTech]</ref> Most of 2021 would go by without any further news, save for the name ''Transformers: Rise'' appearing on a Certain Affinity employee's résumé and an unspecified Chinese company registering "www.transformersrise.com", both seemingly pointing to a title change. However, it was also around this time that the public learned of massive walkouts at Leyou following the Tencent acquisition, including CEO Alexa Xu. Several former employees claimed that leadership had only acquired major licenses like ''Transformers'' and ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' to make the company look better and potentially make more from the buyout, with no intention of ever actually finishing the games, though these claims were never substantiated.<ref>[https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3145836/why-tencent-spent-us13-billion-buy-video-gaming-firm-leyou-left-it Analysis | Why Tencent spent US$1.3 billion to buy video gaming firm Leyou, but left it to languish — South China Morning Post]</ref> Regardless of whether or not they were true, though, the whole thing left many fans feeling a lot more apprehensive about the project, as by this point, not only had the "deadline" for the open beta come and gone, but not a single screenshot or piece of footage had been officially released.

''UN''officially, however, late 2022 is when the leaks really started coming. Less of a leak, more of a dam bursting, really. In just a few months, tons of information and media from Certain Affinity's work on ''Rise'' up to that point started to make its way out into the public sphere, gathered from development team member websites and other anonymous sources. This included unfinished character models and renders, fully-voiced cutscenes, images of the UI, and more. These leaks also gave us the first details of the game's ''new'' story, which focused on an alien threat known as "Legion" that had already conquered Earth decades prior, wiping out most of humanity and taking the Transformers offline, along with a ragtag band of human survivors working to restore the Transformers to help them fight back. Though attempts were made by Hasbro and the dev team to take it all down and scrub the evidence from the internet, fans had already taken notice, and more ''Rise'' details continued to emerge over the course of the next two years, including actual gameplay footage. It was also around this time that fans pieced together from developer résumés that Certain Affinity had been taken off the project, with Splash Damage taking over as lead developer.

===A false start===
On [[December 8]], [[2022]], ''Transformers: Reactivate'' was finally officially announced via a teaser trailer presented at {{w|The Game Awards 2022}}. Despite all the leaks up to that point, this was the first (and ultimately ''only'') time fans had gotten to see anything official of the game, as well as the first mention of the final title and the first public confirmation of development transitioning to Splash Damage. After another full year of radio silence, it was then announced in December 2023 that any further news on the game would be delayed until some unspecified time in 2024, due to the project being migrated to {{w|Unreal Engine 5}}<ref>{{citesocial|quote=We know that everyone has been patiently waiting for updates on TRANSFORMERS: REACTIVATE, however, we won't be revealing any new content this year. Your passion and enthusiasm powers our mission to create THE Transformers game fans have been waiting for, and we've now shifted to developing the game in Unreal Engine 5! Stay tuned for exciting reveals and epic developments in 2024!|link=https://twitter.com/PlayTFR/status/1732437280944505315|name=Transformers: Reactivate|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=12|day=06}}</ref> (something which Splash Damage had previously confirmed back in March at the Game Developers Conference<ref>{{cite social|quote=You might have just seen our logo and some of our key art, so... Transformers: Reactivate and Project Astrid are being built in Unreal Engine 5. Join us to help build those amazing worlds: https://careers.splashdamage.com #GDC #StateofUnreal|link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1638589439650799619|name=Splash Damage|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=03|day=22}}</ref>). This was the last official word on the game for a very long time, with 2024 coming and going without any further mention. The extended silence led a number of people to presume that the project had finally gotten the axe, and though many fans refused to believe it, the writing was on the wall. By June 2024, the game's trailer was silently delisted from the game's official accounts, likely as a result of the license for the trailer's music expiring. The game's Instagram page was similarly deactivated later that year.

Behind the scenes, however, things had hit a roadblock well before even that teaser trailer was released. Compared to the Certain Affinity builds, media of which continued to leak even after being taken off the project, Splash Damage kept things much more under wraps, with no media reaching the public sphere until after the game had already been cancelled. As a result, the majority of our knowledge of what happened during this period comes from a Reddit post by an anonymous Splash Damage employee, who posted under the apt name "extfdev" after the cancellation was confirmed.<ref>{{citesocial|link=https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/comments/1hxlmdy/comment/m6erepy/?rdt=38652|name=extfdev|site=Reddit|year=2025|month=01|day=10}}</ref> In their post, extfdev confirmed that Splash Damage had become the primary developer on ''Reactivate'' around the time of the Tencent deal, and at first attempted to continue where they and Certain Affinity had left off. Other insiders would corroborate this, suggesting that the game was only 8–10 months from completion at the time, with the remaining work mostly consisting of creating extra content and missions to pad out playtime. These insiders also alleged that the shift in developer was due to internal conflicts between the publisher and Certain Affinity over the game's direction (i.e. how "exactly like ''Warframe''"-y it should be). It wasn't long, though, before Splash Damage decided to reboot the project in a bid to make it their own rather than just be the cleanup team on someone else's work. The reboot would retain the overall plot and many of the assets, but dramatically rework the gameplay and overall structure of the game. The problem, however, was that beyond "make an awesome big budget ''Transformers'' game", nothing else ever really solidified in terms of direction.

According to extfdev, this came down to a lack of clear vision from the top-down: with their acquisition by Tencent, they were free to work on their own projects without having to settle for being a work-for-hire studio as they had been up to that point; however, without another company to provide direction on the project, Splash Damage struggled with finding that direction themselves. Multiple individuals took on project leadership roles, then forced the team to undo months of work by changing something they weren't happy with, before leaving and being replaced with someone else. This process repeated countless times and left ''Reactivate''{{'}}s dev team stuck going in circles, constantly remaking what they already had instead of making meaningful forward progress. Gameplay progression switched from open-world to level-based to a blend of the two likened to ''{{w|Tom Clancy's The Division}}''. Features like raid bosses and a horde mode were added and dropped. Characters were designed and redesigned and redesigned again. By 2023, the team had also become very aware that the GaaS model wouldn't be doing the game any favors, with high-profile failures like ''{{w|Marvel's Avengers (video game)|Marvel's Avengers}}'' acting as a cautionary tale. As a result, Splash Damage decided to pivot the game to a standalone triple-A experience instead, which brought about its own complications and conflicts.

Eventually things reached a point where the team had created lots of unused assets...but no actual game. Tencent believed in ''Reactivate'' enough that the original deadline was extended by a full year to try and save it, but by summer of 2024, Splash Damage only had one demo level to show for all their time and effort, one which was not playtesting well at that, and it became clear to everyone that the project wouldn't be able to be salvaged, forcing Tencent to pull the plug. With ''Reactivate'' helping keep the studio afloat, Splash Damage spent the next half a year looking for someone to provide additional funding for the game or offer the team a new project to fill the gap ''Reactivate'' left, but when those efforts failed, they made the hard decision to fully cut their losses.

===End of the line===
The game was finally announced as cancelled via Splash Damage's Twitter account on [[January 8]], [[2025]]. Far more sobering was the accompanying announcement that the studio would be downsizing, leaving roughly over 100 hard-working employees jobless as a result of the aforementioned funding struggles, a depressing end to the whole unfortunate saga.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=Today, we have some very difficult news to share, the decision has been made to end development of Transformers: Reactivate. This means we will be scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects. Unfortunately, despite every effort, a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy. This decision did not come lightly, and it is a difficult time for the studio and our people. We want to take a moment to thank the team who worked on Transformers for their dedication and passion. Hasbro was an incredible and supportive partner throughout, and we hope to work with them again. To the many fans, your excitement and support helped keep us going. While not being able to see the game through to release is painful, having to say goodbye to friends and colleagues hurts even more. We're now focused on doing everything we can to support them through this tough period, just as we are committed to caring for those who will stay with us as we build a stronger Splash Damage for the future. Thank you for your compassion and understanding. |link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1877020458454749485 |name=Splash Damage |site=Twitter |year=2025|month=01|day=08}}</ref> Splash Damage would later be sold to private equity investors the following September, with the cancellation allegedly playing a major role in the decision.<ref>[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/splash-damage-breaks-away-from-tencent Splash Damage breaks away from Tencent — GamesIndustry.biz]</ref> Some additional details have emerged in the time since the cancellation, such as extfdev's post, [[Simon Furman]]'s confirmation that he was contributing to the story, and even more leaked footage from both Certain Affinity's version and Splash Damage's last GaaS build, but by and large, far as we can tell, the story of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' is now officially over. [[Furmanism|Finished]].

==Toyline==
[[File:RiseBumblebee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67| Released just a few months ahead of being sold as a concept art figure.]]
Standing testament to the game's fraught development cycle is the troubled tale of its tie-in toys from [[Hasbro]]. The first public evidence of these products surfaced in early 2021, when store listings under the codename "Shine" (as in "rise and shine") for a pair of two-packs were first discovered.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/im-drunk-and-from-leak-squad-i-quit-it-and-here-it-is-on-a-throwaway.1205827/page-597#post-19019847 TFW2005 post from Jtprime17]</ref> The packs' Hasbro product numbers (which are broadly assigned in numerical order) suggested they were developed around the same time as 2021's ''[[War for Cybertron: Kingdom]]'' toyline, and a confidential slide leaked years later indeed confirmed that, at one stage, these figures were intended to hit shelves late that year.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TFU_INFO/status/1714670388246978948 Leaked slide shared on Twitter by TFU.info]</ref>

The packs were delayed from that planned 2021 launch, no doubt in the hope of still aligning with the release of ''Reactivate'' itself, but with the game's development continuing to stretch on, it seems Hasbro eventually grew tired of waiting and officially launched both packs in November 2023—although some retailers inadvertently listed the Starscream/Bumblebee pack a month early, complete with an out-of-date set of [[stock photography]] which depicted the products in a ''Transformers: Rise''-branded box.<ref>[https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/10/18/first-look-at-transformers-rise-starscream-bumblebee-2-pack-496772 ''Rise'' stock photos on TFW2005]</ref>

The next year, and once again not in connection with any news or update on the game itself, Hasbro re-released the Bumblebee figure by itself in the ''[[Studio Series]]'' toyline's Deluxe Class assortment, as part of the line's "Gamer Edition" sub-branding.

{| style="margin-left:1em;" width="100%"
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Reactivate'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Soundwave (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Soundwave]] / [[Optimus Prime (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Optimus Prime]]}}
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Starscream (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Starscream]] / [[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Studio Series'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1|[[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#SSReactivate|Gamer Edition Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|}

==Notes==
[[File:Transformers Reactivate key art.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|"What's that coming out of her nose?" "''Spaceballs!''" "Oh shit. There goes the planet."]]
* The game's now-unlisted teaser trailer featured a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9uyAVi9wWc song cover] of {{w|Bon Jovi}}'s "{{w|Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)|Wanted Dead or Alive}}", performed by Empara Mi and dreamchild.
* The game's key art features a billboard for [[Prim Cola]], a piece of rubble with the [[Earth Defense Command|EDC]] logo painted on it, and the head of the [[Statue of Liberty]] with the text [[The New Order|"ARE ALL DEAD?"]] scratched into it.
* During the teaser trailer, Bumblebee scans one of the humans to compare her to an image of [[Marissa Faireborn]] in his database. Leaks would reveal this to be a descendant of hers, Andrea Faireborn (renamed Cassandra Faireborn in later builds).
* In an early product description for the ''Reactivate'' (then ''Rise'') Optimus and Soundwave 2-pack, the alien invaders were identified as the [[Quintesson]]s, suggesting they were either replaced by or the progenitors of the Legion.
* Leaked concept art for the game shows [[FIRRIB|Rumble is blue]].
* In leaked footage, Bumblebee's bio also refers to him as "B-127" like his [[Bumblebee (Movie)|live action counterpart]].
* For their version of the game, Splash Damage considered including a new prologue set on [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]], which would be attacked and destroyed by the Legion. Furman offered material from ''[[Transformers: The Ultimate Guide]]'' to help them shape the game's version of Cybertron.<ref>[https://youtu.be/oStrnKIToLI?si=yJOC1rtCI7rohBn2&t=1084 The Rest is Giant Robots episode 15 - The Dream(wave) is Dead]</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [https://www.playtfr.com/ Official website]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBK2ZpYY_0 Teaser trailer]
* [https://www.tiktok.com/@playtfr TikTok page]
* [https://twitter.com/PlayTFR Twitter page]
* [https://www.instagram.com/playtfr/ Instagram page (deactivated)]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reactivate}}
[[Category: Generation 1 video games]]
[[Category: Things that don't exist]]

Transformers: Reactivate

2025-08-15T18:15:26Z

Nembert:

{{videogame
|title=''Transformers: Reactivate''
|japanese=
|image= Transformers Reactivate Logo.png
|caption=Yeah, yeah, get your "Deactivated" jokes out of your system.
|prev=
|next=
|developer=[[Certain Affinity]] [[Splash Damage]]
|publisher=
|writer=[[Simon Furman]]<ref>{{citesocial|quote=I'm hearing the plug has officially been pulled on Splash Damage's #Transformers: Reactivate game. I've been contributing story, lore, character work & dialog to the project, alongside amazing teams and creatives. It could - and should - have been the best TF game ever. Very sad.|link=https://twitter.com/SimonFurman3/status/1877275986170986918|name=Simon Furman|site=Twitter|year=2025|month=01|day=09}}</ref>
|date=Cancelled
|platform=PC, [[PlayStation]] 4, PlayStation 5, [[Xbox]] One, Xbox Series X/S
}}

'''''Transformers: Reactivate''''' is a cancelled online multiplayer game developed by [[Splash Damage]]. It was announced in [[December]] [[2022]] via a teaser trailer that was pretty scant on details, with plans for a closed beta that would be happening [[soon]]. However, due to an infamously troubled development cycle, nothing of the game was shown outside of that teaser for another ''763 days'', leaving many to question the state of the project. The game was ultimately announced as cancelled in [[January]] [[2025]], seemingly existing as little more than vaporware to the world at large.

In truth, however, the story was much more complicated. Spending nearly seven long years in development across two developers, ''Reactivate'' was beset by multiple troubles that hampered progress, and the bulk of our knowledge about the game comes from anonymous development team members and leaks that showed more of the product than was ''ever'' officially confirmed, including playable characters, gameplay mechanics, and an attempted overall transition from a microtransaction-laden live service game to a premium AAA experience.

==Plot==
[[File: Transformers Reactivate screenshot20220812 06.jpeg|upright=1.4|thumb|"We can rebuild him."]]

{{note|The game's plot went through a few different incarnations, with several elements such as character names changed between story revisions, but the broad strokes stayed fairly consistent. The following is a rough summary of the plot at the time of the game's 2022 announcement, based on both official and unofficial sources.}}

{{quote|The gravest threat to [[human]]ity has arrived. And it's already won. [[Earth]] is no longer ours; it belongs to them. All we have left is our hope for the [[Autobot]]s, as we salvage them from the rubble left behind.|Official website}}

It has been 70 years since Earth was attacked by the Legion, an alien race whose nanomachine-based composition allows them to quickly recover from any injury. Realizing the threat at hand, the Autobots and Decepticons joined forces, working with the humans to repel the invaders, but a massive EMP took all the Transformers offline, leaving the humans to be quickly overwhelmed. Now, civilization is in ruins and humanity is on the brink of extinction. But a small resistance force known as the Renegades continue to fight back, and have begun to recover the derelict Transformers in the hopes they can help finally turn the tide of the war. With Optimus Prime and Megatron both missing in action, the recently reactivated Bumblebee steps up to lead the survivors in a final campaign that will decide the fate of the planet.

==Featured characters==
{{note|Keep in mind that the game's character roster was very much in flux, and while each of these characters was in the game ''at some point'', they may have been removed in later builds. But considering there is no "final" roster, we've elected to list everyone we know of for completion's sake.}}
{{featuredcharacters|
|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
*[[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] ([[Robbie Daymond]])
*[[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]]
*[[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] ([[Jamieson Price]])
*[[Windblade (G1)|Windblade]]
*[[Hot Rod (G1)|Hot Rod]]
*[[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]]
*[[Powerglide (G1)|Powerglide]]
*[[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]]
*[[Elita One (G1)|Elita One]]
*[[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]]
*[[Cliffjumper (G1)|Cliffjumper]]
*[[Metroplex (G1)|Metroplex]]
|c2=
*[[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]
*[[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]] ([[Steve Blum]])
*[[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
**[[Laserbeak (G1)|Laserbeak]]
**[[Ravage (G1)|Ravage]]
**[[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]]
*[[Shockwave (G1)|Shockwave]]
*[[Slipstream (G1)|Slipstream]]
*[[Knock Out (G1)|Knock Out]]
*[[Horri-Bull]]
*[[Divebomb (G1)|Divebomb]]
|c3=
*Andrea/Cassandra Faireborn
*Delvin Winslow
*Markus Irving
*Presea Anand
|c4=
*Legion
*[[Quintesson]]s
|nonumbering=true}}

==Development history==
Calling the development of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' "tumultuous" would be like calling the Decepticons "kinda mean". From its quiet announcement to its ignominious end, the project went through a series of hardships throughout its development, much of which was never publicly confirmed; even now, the parties involved are still under strict NDA regarding the game, preventing them from making any substantial comments on the record. As a result, it's difficult to be 100% certain of exactly what happened...but we're going to try our best anyway. Thus, we've cobbled together the following summary of events from public announcements, various leaks, postmortem analyses, and other assorted sources in an attempt to paint a clearer picture of why this game was never released. Some details will inevitably be inaccurate due to the secrecy surrounding the game and the nature by which much of this information was obtained, but barring any sort of additional tell-all from other members of either development team, this is probably the closest we can get to the full story with the information we have available.

Word of the game's existence first surfaced at the end of 2017, around the same time as [[Activision]]'s exclusivity deal with [[Hasbro]] to produce ''Transformers'' games came to an end. In Chinese holding company {{w|Leyou}}'s annual report for that year, they stated that they had entered into a licensing agreement with [[Hasbro]] back in August to produce a massively multiplayer online shooter based on the property, similar to their hit game ''{{w|Warframe}}'', and had tapped recently acquired American game studio {{w|Certain Affinity}} to develop it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20201118133639/https://www.files.services/files/359/2018/0420/20180420121501_95996174_en.pdf Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2017 Annual Report] (archived)</ref> Not much would be said about the project for most of the following year, presumably because work was still very early, though Certain Affinity CEO Max Hoberman stated in an August 2018 interview that the project was both their biggest to date and their first time utilizing the free-to-play games as a service (GaaS) model.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=There's multiple transitions that we're going through as a company as we prepare for this. In that sense, both the Transformers game and Last Expedition have been designed from the ground up to be games as a service, to be games that become people's hobbies that they play day in and day out, for months and years, and that we're continuously improving and enhancing.|link=https://venturebeat.com/games/certain-affinity-is-ready-for-the-limelight-with-games-as-a-service-model/|name=Max Hoberman|site=VentureBeat|year=2018|month=08|day=04}}</ref> Leyou also confirmed in their annual report for that year that the game's budget had increased from $15 million to $33 million.<ref>[https://docslib.org/doc/4334356/annual-report-2018-report-annual-contents Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2018 Annual Report] (archived)</ref>

The game was publicly announced by Leyou in August 2019 at the Chinajoy 2019 event, under the tentative title of ''Transformers Online'', and that it would be released for both PC and then-current consoles.<ref>[https://mmoculture.com/2019/08/leyou-ambitious-company-reveals-new-transformers-and-civilization-online-games/ Leyou – Ambitious company reveals new Transformers and Civilization online games – MMO Culture]</ref> This would be the main news about the game for the year, with nothing else of it mentioned by anyone involved aside from the fact that it was still being worked on. In January of 2020, a former Certain Affinity employee was found to have listed "''Transformers: Impact''" on their résumé, suggesting that this was the game's real title.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/certain-affinitys-transformers-online.1167054/page-17#post-17886902 jungle penguins on TFW2005]</ref> Later in July, Leyou issued a press release stating that they had invested another $10 million into Certain Affinity to improve the game, and that an open beta period would be beginning soon, with 70% of its "core gameplay" completed.<ref>[http://northeurope.blob.euroland.com/press-releases-attachments/1236288/HKEX-EPS_20200706_9346969-0.PDF Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref> A month later, Leyou made the announcement that British studio [[Splash Damage]], another developer under their purview, would be assisting with ''Impact''{{'}}s development going forward.<ref>[https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2020/0821/2020082100849.pdf Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref>

Things would take a bit of a turn in August 2020 when Chinese media conglomerate Tencent made a bid to acquire Leyou for $1.5 billion, which would ultimately be finalized in December.<ref>[https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/tencent-officially-acquires-splash-damage-parent-leyou-in-1-5-billion-deal Tencent officially acquires Splash Damage parent Leyou in $1.5 billion deal — Game Developer]</ref> As a result of this, a handful of Leyou documents were made public, including what appeared to be early pitch slides for ''Transformers: Impact''. The slides described a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons over an alien superweapon called the Aegis, which is destroyed in the battle in a massive explosion that wipes out most of the Transformers; with the shards of the Aegis landing on Earth and starting to corrupt the planet, the remaining Autobots and Decepticons are forced to band together to survive. The presentation also elaborated on the gameplay loop, live service elements, and other plans, including the original planned release of Q4 2018 for early access and Q2 2019 for the full launch. Obviously, that didn't happen, leading to multiple date amendments in the presentation, with the most recent placing the hard deadline for launch as October 31, 2021 for the open beta, and April 30, 2022 for the full release; presumably Splash Damage was brought on to help make sure the project hit these dates.<ref>[https://wccftech.com/transformers-online-mix-destiny-warframe-targeting-october-2021/ Transformers Online Designed as a Mix of Destiny and Warframe, Targeting October 2021 for the Open Beta — WCCFTech]</ref> Most of 2021 would go by without any further news, save for the name ''Transformers: Rise'' appearing on a Certain Affinity employee's résumé and an unspecified Chinese company registering "www.transformersrise.com", both seemingly pointing to a title change. However, it was also around this time that the public learned of massive walkouts at Leyou following the Tencent acquisition, including CEO Alexa Xu. Several former employees claimed that leadership had only acquired major licenses like ''Transformers'' and ''{{w|Lord of the Rings}}'' to make the company look better and potentially make more from the buyout, with no intention of ever actually finishing the games, though these claims were never substantiated.<ref>[https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3145836/why-tencent-spent-us13-billion-buy-video-gaming-firm-leyou-left-it Analysis | Why Tencent spent US$1.3 billion to buy video gaming firm Leyou, but left it to languish — South China Morning Post]</ref> Regardless of whether or not they were true, though, the whole thing left many fans feeling a lot more apprehensive about the project, as by this point, not only had the "deadline" for the open beta come and gone, but not a single screenshot or piece of footage had been officially released.

''UN''officially, however, late 2022 is when the leaks really started coming. Less of a leak, more of a dam bursting, really. In just a few months, tons of information and media from Certain Affinity's work on ''Rise'' up to that point started to make its way out into the public sphere, gathered from development team member websites and other anonymous sources. This included unfinished character models and renders, fully-voiced cutscenes, images of the UI, and more. These leaks also gave us the first details of the game's ''new'' story, which focused on an alien threat known as "Legion" that had already conquered Earth decades prior, wiping out most of humanity and taking the Transformers offline, along with a ragtag band of human survivors working to restore the Transformers to help them fight back. Though attempts were made by Hasbro and the dev team to take it all down and scrub the evidence from the internet, fans had already taken notice, and more ''Rise'' details continued to emerge over the course of the next two years, including actual gameplay footage. It was also around this time that fans pieced together from developer résumés that Certain Affinity had been taken off the project, with Splash Damage taking over as lead developer.

On [[December 8]], [[2022]], ''Transformers: Reactivate'' was finally officially announced via a teaser trailer presented at {{w|The Game Awards 2022}}. Despite all the leaks up to that point, this was the first (and ultimately ''only'') time fans had gotten to see anything official of the game, as well as the first mention of the final title and the first public confirmation of development transitioning to Splash Damage. After another full year of radio silence, it was then announced in December 2023 that any further news on the game would be delayed until some unspecified time in 2024, due to the project being migrated to {{w|Unreal Engine 5}}<ref>{{citesocial|quote=We know that everyone has been patiently waiting for updates on TRANSFORMERS: REACTIVATE, however, we won't be revealing any new content this year. Your passion and enthusiasm powers our mission to create THE Transformers game fans have been waiting for, and we've now shifted to developing the game in Unreal Engine 5! Stay tuned for exciting reveals and epic developments in 2024!|link=https://twitter.com/PlayTFR/status/1732437280944505315|name=Transformers: Reactivate|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=12|day=06}}</ref> (something which Splash Damage had previously confirmed back in March at the Game Developers Conference<ref>{{cite social|quote=You might have just seen our logo and some of our key art, so... Transformers: Reactivate and Project Astrid are being built in Unreal Engine 5. Join us to help build those amazing worlds: https://careers.splashdamage.com #GDC #StateofUnreal|link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1638589439650799619|name=Splash Damage|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=03|day=22}}</ref>). This was the last official word on the game for a very long time, with 2024 coming and going without any further mention. The extended silence led a number of people to presume that the project had finally gotten the axe, and though many fans refused to believe it, the writing was on the wall. By June 2024, the game's trailer was silently delisted from the game's official accounts, likely as a result of the license for the trailer's music expiring. The game's Instagram page was similarly deactivated later that year.

Behind the scenes, however, things had hit a roadblock well before even that teaser trailer was released. Compared to the Certain Affinity builds, media of which continued to leak even after being taken off the project, Splash Damage kept things much more under wraps, with no media reaching the public sphere until after the game had already been cancelled. As a result, the majority of our knowledge of what happened during this period comes from a Reddit post by an anonymous Splash Damage employee, who posted under the apt name "extfdev" after the cancellation was confirmed.<ref>{{citesocial|link=https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/comments/1hxlmdy/comment/m6erepy/?rdt=38652|name=extfdev|site=Reddit|year=2025|month=01|day=10}}</ref> In their post, extfdev confirmed that Splash Damage had become the primary developer on ''Reactivate'' around the time of the Tencent deal, and at first attempted to continue where they and Certain Affinity had left off. Other insiders would corroborate this, suggesting that the game was only 8–10 months from completion at the time, with the remaining work mostly consisting of creating extra content and missions to pad out playtime. These insiders also alleged that the shift in developer was due to internal conflicts between the publisher and Certain Affinity over the game's direction (i.e. how "exactly like ''Warframe''"-y it should be). It wasn't long, though, before the team became very aware that the GaaS model wouldn't be doing the game any favors, with high-profile failures like ''{{w|Marvel's Avengers (video game)|Marvel's Avengers}}'' acting as a cautionary tale. As a result, Splash Damage decided to pivot the game to a standalone triple-A experience instead, necessitating a full reboot of the project outside of the plot and character designs. The problem, however, was that beyond "make an awesome big budget ''Transformers'' game", nothing else ever really solidified in terms of direction.

According to extfdev, this came down to a lack of clear vision from the top-down: With their acquisition by Tencent, they were free to work on their own projects without having to settle for being a work-for-hire studio as they had been up to that point; however, without another company to provide direction on the project, Splash Damage struggled with finding that direction themselves. Multiple individuals took on project leadership roles, then forced the team to undo months of work by changing something they weren't happy with, before leaving and being replaced with someone else. This process repeated countless times and left ''Reactivate''{{'}}s dev team stuck going in circles, constantly remaking what they already had instead of making meaningful forward progress. Gameplay progression switched from open-world to level-based to a blend of the two likened to ''{{w|Tom Clancy's The Division}}''. Features like raid bosses and a horde mode were added and dropped. Characters were designed and redesigned and redesigned again. By the end, the team had created lots of unused assets...but no actual game. Tencent believed in ''Reactivate'' enough that the original deadline was extended by a full year to try and save it, but by summer of 2024, Splash Damage only had one demo level to show for all their time and effort, and it became clear to everyone that the project wouldn't be able to be salvaged, forcing Tencent to pull the plug. With ''Reactivate'' helping keep the studio afloat, Splash Damage spent the next half a year looking for someone to provide additional funding for the game or offer the team a new project to fill the gap ''Reactivate'' left, but when those efforts failed, they made the hard decision to fully cut their losses.

The game was finally announced as cancelled via Splash Damage's Twitter account on [[January 8]], [[2025]]. Far more sobering was the accompanying announcement that the studio would be downsizing, leaving roughly over 100 hard-working employees jobless as a result of the aforementioned funding struggles, a depressing end to the whole unfortunate saga.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=Today, we have some very difficult news to share, the decision has been made to end development of Transformers: Reactivate. This means we will be scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects. Unfortunately, despite every effort, a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy. This decision did not come lightly, and it is a difficult time for the studio and our people. We want to take a moment to thank the team who worked on Transformers for their dedication and passion. Hasbro was an incredible and supportive partner throughout, and we hope to work with them again. To the many fans, your excitement and support helped keep us going. While not being able to see the game through to release is painful, having to say goodbye to friends and colleagues hurts even more. We're now focused on doing everything we can to support them through this tough period, just as we are committed to caring for those who will stay with us as we build a stronger Splash Damage for the future. Thank you for your compassion and understanding. |link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1877020458454749485 |name=Splash Damage |site=Twitter |year=2025|month=01|day=08}}</ref> Some additional details have emerged in the time since, such as extfdev's post, [[Simon Furman]]'s confirmation that he was contributing to the story, and even more leaked footage from both Certain Affinity's version and Splash Damage's last GaaS build, but by and large, far as we can tell, the story of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' is now officially over. [[Furmanism|Finished]].

==Toyline==
[[File:RiseBumblebee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67| Released just a few months ahead of being sold as a concept art figure.]]
Standing testament to the game's fraught development cycle is the troubled tale of its tie-in toys from [[Hasbro]]. The first public evidence of these products surfaced in early 2021, when store listings under the codename "Shine" (as in "rise and shine") for a pair of two-packs were first discovered.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/im-drunk-and-from-leak-squad-i-quit-it-and-here-it-is-on-a-throwaway.1205827/page-597#post-19019847 TFW2005 post from Jtprime17]</ref> The packs' Hasbro product numbers (which are broadly assigned in numerical order) suggested they were developed around the same time as 2021's ''[[War for Cybertron: Kingdom]]'' toyline, and a confidential slide leaked years later indeed confirmed that, at one stage, these figures were intended to hit shelves late that year.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TFU_INFO/status/1714670388246978948 Leaked slide shared on Twitter by TFU.info]</ref>

The packs were delayed from that planned 2021 launch, no doubt in the hope of still aligning with the release of ''Reactivate'' itself, but with the game's development continuing to stretch on, it seems Hasbro eventually grew tired of waiting and officially launched both packs in November 2023—although some retailers inadvertently listed the Starscream/Bumblebee pack a month early, complete with an out-of-date set of [[stock photography]] which depicted the products in a ''Transformers: Rise''-branded box.<ref>[https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/10/18/first-look-at-transformers-rise-starscream-bumblebee-2-pack-496772 ''Rise'' stock photos on TFW2005]</ref>

The next year, and once again not in connection with any news or update on the game itself, Hasbro re-released the Bumblebee figure by itself in the ''[[Studio Series]]'' toyline's Deluxe Class assortment, as part of the line's "Gamer Edition" sub-branding.

{| style="margin-left:1em;" width="100%"
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Reactivate'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Soundwave (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Soundwave]] / [[Optimus Prime (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Optimus Prime]]}}
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Starscream (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Starscream]] / [[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Studio Series'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1|[[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#SSReactivate|Gamer Edition Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|}

==Notes==
[[File:Transformers Reactivate key art.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|]]
* The game's now-unlisted teaser trailer featured a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9uyAVi9wWc song cover] of {{w|Bon Jovi}}'s "{{w|Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)|Wanted Dead or Alive}}", performed by Empara Mi and dreamchild.
* The game's key art features a billboard for [[Prim Cola]], a piece of rubble with the [[Earth Defense Command|EDC]] logo painted on it, and the head of the [[Statue of Liberty]] with the text [[The New Order|"ARE ALL DEAD?"]] scratched into it.
* During the teaser trailer, Bumblebee scans one of the humans to compare her to an image of [[Marissa Faireborn]] in his database. Leaks would reveal this to be a descendant of hers, Andrea Faireborn (renamed Cassandra Faireborn in later builds).
* In an early product description for the ''Reactivate'' (then ''Rise'') Optimus and Soundwave 2-pack, the alien invaders were identified as the [[Quintesson]]s, suggesting they were either replaced by or the progenitors of the Legion.
* Leaked concept art for the game shows [[FIRRIB|Rumble is blue]].
* In leaked footage, Bumblebee's bio also refers to him as "B-127" like his [[Bumblebee (Movie)|live action counterpart]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.playtfr.com/ Official website]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBK2ZpYY_0 Teaser trailer]
* [https://www.tiktok.com/@playtfr TikTok page]
* [https://twitter.com/PlayTFR Twitter page]
* [https://www.instagram.com/playtfr/ Instagram page (deactivated)]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reactivate}}
[[Category: Generation 1 video games]]
[[Category: Things that don't exist]]

Transformers: Reactivate

2025-08-15T18:11:33Z

Nembert: 100+ is the approximate number of those let go, "multiple" kind of undersells it.

{{videogame
|title=''Transformers: Reactivate''
|japanese=
|image= Transformers Reactivate Logo.png
|caption=Yeah, yeah, get your "Deactivated" jokes out of your system.
|prev=
|next=
|developer=[[Certain Affinity]] [[Splash Damage]]
|publisher=
|writer=[[Simon Furman]]<ref>{{citesocial|quote=I'm hearing the plug has officially been pulled on Splash Damage's #Transformers: Reactivate game. I've been contributing story, lore, character work & dialog to the project, alongside amazing teams and creatives. It could - and should - have been the best TF game ever. Very sad.|link=https://twitter.com/SimonFurman3/status/1877275986170986918|name=Simon Furman|site=Twitter|year=2025|month=01|day=09}}</ref>
|date=Cancelled
|platform=PC, [[PlayStation]] 4, PlayStation 5, [[Xbox]] One, Xbox Series X/S
}}

'''''Transformers: Reactivate''''' is a cancelled online multiplayer game developed by [[Splash Damage]]. It was announced in [[December]] [[2022]] via a teaser trailer that was pretty scant on details, with plans for a closed beta that would be happening [[soon]]. However, due to an infamously troubled development cycle, nothing of the game was shown outside of that teaser for another ''763 days'', leaving many to question the state of the project. The game was ultimately announced as cancelled in [[January]] [[2025]], seemingly existing as little more than vaporware to the world at large.

In truth, however, the story was much more complicated. Spending nearly seven long years in development across two developers, ''Reactivate'' was beset by multiple troubles that hampered progress, and the bulk of our knowledge about the game comes from anonymous development team members and leaks that showed more of the product than was ''ever'' officially confirmed, including playable characters, gameplay mechanics, and an attempted overall transition from a microtransaction-laden live service game to a premium AAA experience.

==Plot==
[[File: Transformers Reactivate screenshot20220812 06.jpeg|upright=1.4|thumb|"We can rebuild him."]]

{{note|The game's plot went through a few different incarnations, with several elements such as character names changed between story revisions, but the broad strokes stayed fairly consistent. The following is a rough summary of the plot at the time of the game's 2022 announcement, based on both official and unofficial sources.}}

{{quote|The gravest threat to [[human]]ity has arrived. And it's already won. [[Earth]] is no longer ours; it belongs to them. All we have left is our hope for the [[Autobot]]s, as we salvage them from the rubble left behind.|Official website}}

It has been 70 years since Earth was attacked by the Legion, an alien race whose nanomachine-based composition allows them to quickly recover from any injury. Realizing the threat at hand, the Autobots and Decepticons joined forces, working with the humans to repel the invaders, but a massive EMP took all the Transformers offline, leaving the humans to be quickly overwhelmed. Now, civilization is in ruins and humanity is on the brink of extinction. But a small resistance force known as the Renegades continue to fight back, and have begun to recover the derelict Transformers in the hopes they can help finally turn the tide of the war. With Optimus Prime and Megatron both missing in action, the recently reactivated Bumblebee steps up to lead the survivors in a final campaign that will decide the fate of the planet.

==Featured characters==
{{note|Keep in mind that the game's character roster was very much in flux, and while each of these characters was in the game ''at some point'', they may have been removed in later builds. But considering there is no "final" roster, we've elected to list everyone we know of for completion's sake.}}
{{featuredcharacters|
|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
*[[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] ([[Robbie Daymond]])
*[[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]]
*[[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] ([[Jamieson Price]])
*[[Windblade (G1)|Windblade]]
*[[Hot Rod (G1)|Hot Rod]]
*[[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]]
*[[Powerglide (G1)|Powerglide]]
*[[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]]
*[[Elita One (G1)|Elita One]]
*[[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]]
*[[Cliffjumper (G1)|Cliffjumper]]
*[[Metroplex (G1)|Metroplex]]
|c2=
*[[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]
*[[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]] ([[Steve Blum]])
*[[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
**[[Laserbeak (G1)|Laserbeak]]
**[[Ravage (G1)|Ravage]]
**[[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]]
*[[Shockwave (G1)|Shockwave]]
*[[Slipstream (G1)|Slipstream]]
*[[Knock Out (G1)|Knock Out]]
*[[Horri-Bull]]
*[[Divebomb (G1)|Divebomb]]
|c3=
*Andrea/Cassandra Faireborn
*Delvin Winslow
*Markus Irving
*Presea Anand
|c4=
*Legion
*[[Quintesson]]s
|nonumbering=true}}

==Development history==
Calling the development of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' "tumultuous" would be like calling the Decepticons "kinda mean". From its quiet announcement to its ignominious end, the project went through a series of hardships throughout its development, much of which was never publicly confirmed; even now, the parties involved are still under strict NDA regarding the game, preventing them from making any substantial comments on the record. As a result, it's difficult to be 100% certain of exactly what happened...but we're going to try our best anyway. Thus, we've cobbled together the following summary of events from public announcements, various leaks, postmortem analyses, and other assorted sources in an attempt to paint a clearer picture of why this game was never released. Some details will inevitably be inaccurate due to the secrecy surrounding the game and the nature by which much of this information was obtained, but barring any sort of additional tell-all from other members of either development team, this is probably the closest we can get to the full story with the information we have available.

Word of the game's existence first surfaced at the end of 2017, around the same time as [[Activision]]'s exclusivity deal with [[Hasbro]] to produce ''Transformers'' games came to an end. In Chinese holding company {{w|Leyou}}'s annual report for that year, they stated that they had entered into a licensing agreement with [[Hasbro]] back in August to produce a massively multiplayer online shooter based on the property, similar to their hit game ''{{w|Warframe}}'', and had tapped recently acquired American game studio {{w|Certain Affinity}} to develop it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20201118133639/https://www.files.services/files/359/2018/0420/20180420121501_95996174_en.pdf Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2017 Annual Report] (archived)</ref> Not much would be said about the project for most of the following year, presumably because work was still very early, though Certain Affinity CEO Max Hoberman stated in an August 2018 interview that the project was both their biggest to date and their first time utilizing the free-to-play games as a service (GaaS) model.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=There's multiple transitions that we're going through as a company as we prepare for this. In that sense, both the Transformers game and Last Expedition have been designed from the ground up to be games as a service, to be games that become people's hobbies that they play day in and day out, for months and years, and that we're continuously improving and enhancing.|link=https://venturebeat.com/games/certain-affinity-is-ready-for-the-limelight-with-games-as-a-service-model/|name=Max Hoberman|site=VentureBeat|year=2018|month=08|day=04}}</ref> Leyou also confirmed in their annual report for that year that the game's budget had increased from $15 million to $33 million.<ref>[https://docslib.org/doc/4334356/annual-report-2018-report-annual-contents Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2018 Annual Report] (archived)</ref>

The game was publicly announced by Leyou in August 2019 at the Chinajoy 2019 event, under the tentative title of ''Transformers Online'', and that it would be released for both PC and then-current consoles.<ref>[https://mmoculture.com/2019/08/leyou-ambitious-company-reveals-new-transformers-and-civilization-online-games/ Leyou – Ambitious company reveals new Transformers and Civilization online games – MMO Culture]</ref> This would be the main news about the game for the year, with nothing else of it mentioned by anyone involved aside from the fact that it was still being worked on. In January of 2020, a former Certain Affinity employee was found to have listed "''Transformers: Impact''" on their résumé, suggesting that this was the game's real title.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/certain-affinitys-transformers-online.1167054/page-17#post-17886902 jungle penguins on TFW2005]</ref> Later in July, Leyou issued a press release stating that they had invested another $10 million into Certain Affinity to improve the game, and that an open beta period would be beginning soon, with 70% of its "core gameplay" completed.<ref>[http://northeurope.blob.euroland.com/press-releases-attachments/1236288/HKEX-EPS_20200706_9346969-0.PDF Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref> A month later, Leyou made the announcement that British studio [[Splash Damage]], another developer under their purview, would be assisting with ''Impact''{{'}}s development going forward.<ref>[https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2020/0821/2020082100849.pdf Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref>

Things would take a bit of a turn in August 2020 when Chinese media conglomerate Tencent made a bid to acquire Leyou for $1.5 billion, which would ultimately be finalized in December.<ref>[https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/tencent-officially-acquires-splash-damage-parent-leyou-in-1-5-billion-deal Tencent officially acquires Splash Damage parent Leyou in $1.5 billion deal — Game Developer]</ref> As a result of this, a handful of Leyou documents were made public, including what appeared to be early pitch slides for ''Transformers: Impact''. The slides described a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons over an alien superweapon called the Aegis, which is destroyed in the battle in a massive explosion that wipes out most of the Transformers; with the shards of the Aegis landing on Earth and starting to corrupt the planet, the remaining Autobots and Decepticons are forced to band together to survive. The presentation also elaborated on the gameplay loop, live service elements, and other plans, including the original planned release of Q4 2018 for early access and Q2 2019 for the full launch. Obviously, that didn't happen, leading to multiple date amendments in the presentation, with the most recent placing the hard deadline for launch as October 31, 2021 for the open beta, and April 30, 2022 for the full release; presumably Splash Damage was brought on to help make sure the project hit these dates.<ref>[https://wccftech.com/transformers-online-mix-destiny-warframe-targeting-october-2021/ Transformers Online Designed as a Mix of Destiny and Warframe, Targeting October 2021 for the Open Beta — WCCFTech]</ref> Most of 2021 would go by without any further news, save for the name ''Transformers: Rise'' appearing on a Certain Affinity employee's résumé and an unspecified Chinese company registering "www.transformersrise.com", both seemingly pointing to a title change. However, it was also around this time that the public learned of massive walkouts at Leyou following the Tencent acquisition, including CEO Alexa Xu. Several former employees claimed that leadership had only acquired major licenses like ''Transformers'' and ''{{w|Lord of the Rings}}'' to make the company look better and potentially make more from the buyout, with no intention of ever actually finishing the games, though these claims were never substantiated.<ref>[https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3145836/why-tencent-spent-us13-billion-buy-video-gaming-firm-leyou-left-it Analysis | Why Tencent spent US$1.3 billion to buy video gaming firm Leyou, but left it to languish — South China Morning Post]</ref> Regardless of whether or not they were true, though, the whole thing left many fans feeling a lot more apprehensive about the project, as by this point, not only had the "deadline" for the open beta come and gone, but not a single screenshot or piece of footage had been officially released.

''UN''officially, however, late 2022 is when the leaks really started coming. Less of a leak, more of a dam bursting, really. In just a few months, tons of information and media from Certain Affinity's work on ''Rise'' up to that point started to make its way out into the public sphere, gathered from development team member websites and other anonymous sources. This included unfinished character models and renders, fully-voiced cutscenes, images of the UI, and more. These leaks also gave us the first details of the game's ''new'' story, which focused on an alien threat known as "Legion" that had already conquered Earth decades prior, wiping out most of humanity and taking the Transformers offline, along with a ragtag band of human survivors working to restore the Transformers to help them fight back. Though attempts were made by Hasbro and the dev team to take it all down and scrub the evidence from the internet, fans had already taken notice, and more ''Rise'' details continued to emerge over the course of the next two years, including actual gameplay footage. It was also around this time that fans pieced together from developer résumés that Certain Affinity had been taken off the project, with Splash Damage taking over as lead developer.

On [[December 8]], [[2022]], ''Transformers: Reactivate'' was finally officially announced via a teaser trailer presented at {{w|The Game Awards 2022}}. Despite all the leaks up to that point, this was the first (and ultimately ''only'') time fans had gotten to see anything official of the game, as well as the first mention of the final title and the first public confirmation of development transitioning to Splash Damage. After another full year of radio silence, it was then announced in December 2023 that any further news on the game would be delayed until some unspecified time in 2024, due to the project being migrated to {{w|Unreal Engine 5}}<ref>{{citesocial|quote=We know that everyone has been patiently waiting for updates on TRANSFORMERS: REACTIVATE, however, we won't be revealing any new content this year. Your passion and enthusiasm powers our mission to create THE Transformers game fans have been waiting for, and we've now shifted to developing the game in Unreal Engine 5! Stay tuned for exciting reveals and epic developments in 2024!|link=https://twitter.com/PlayTFR/status/1732437280944505315|name=Transformers: Reactivate|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=12|day=06}}</ref> (something which Splash Damage had previously confirmed back in March at the Game Developers Conference<ref>{{cite social|quote=You might have just seen our logo and some of our key art, so... Transformers: Reactivate and Project Astrid are being built in Unreal Engine 5. Join us to help build those amazing worlds: https://careers.splashdamage.com #GDC #StateofUnreal|link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1638589439650799619|name=Splash Damage|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=03|day=22}}</ref>). This was the last official word on the game for a very long time, with 2024 coming and going without any further mention. The extended silence led a number of people to presume that the project had finally gotten the axe, and though many fans refused to believe it, the writing was on the wall. By June 2024, the game's trailer was silently delisted from the game's official accounts, likely as a result of the license for the trailer's music expiring. The game's Instagram page was similarly deactivated later that year.

Behind the scenes, however, things had hit a roadblock well before even that teaser trailer was released. Compared to the Certain Affinity builds, media of which continued to leak even after being taken off the project, Splash Damage kept things much more under wraps, with no media reaching the public sphere until after the game had already been cancelled. As a result, the majority of our knowledge of what happened during this period comes from a Reddit post by an anonymous Splash Damage employee, who posted under the apt name "extfdev" after the cancellation was confirmed.<ref>{{citesocial|link=https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/comments/1hxlmdy/comment/m6erepy/?rdt=38652|name=extfdev|site=Reddit|year=2025|month=01|day=10}}</ref> In their post, extfdev confirmed that Splash Damage had become the primary developer on ''Reactivate'' around the time of the Tencent deal, and at first attempted to continue where they and Certain Affinity had left off. Other insiders would corroborate this, suggesting that the game was only 8–10 months from completion at the time, with the remaining work mostly consisting of creating extra content and missions to pad out playtime. These insiders also alleged that the shift in developer was due to internal conflicts between the publisher and Certain Affinity over the game's direction (i.e. how "exactly like ''Warframe''"-y it should be). It wasn't long, though, before the team became very aware that the GaaS model wouldn't be doing the game any favors, with high-profile failures like ''{{w|Marvel's Avengers (video game)|Marvel's Avengers}}'' acting as a cautionary tale. As a result, Splash Damage decided to pivot the game to a standalone triple-A experience instead, necessitating a full reboot of the project outside of the plot and character designs. The problem, however, was that beyond "make an awesome big budget ''Transformers'' game", nothing else ever really solidified in terms of direction.

According to extfdev, this came down to a lack of clear vision from the top-down: With their acquisition by Tencent, they were free to work on their own projects without having to settle for being a work-for-hire studio as they had been up to that point; however, without another company to provide direction on the project, Splash Damage struggled with finding that direction themselves. Multiple individuals took on project leadership roles, then forced the team to undo months of work by changing something they weren't happy with, before leaving and being replaced with someone else. This process repeated countless times and left ''Reactivate''{{'}}s dev team stuck going in circles, constantly remaking what they already had instead of making meaningful forward progress. Gameplay progression switched from open-world to level-based to a blend of the two likened to ''{{w|Tom Clancy's The Division}}''. Features like raid bosses and a horde mode were added and dropped. Characters were designed and redesigned and redesigned again. By the end, the team had created lots of unused assets...but no actual game. Tencent believed in ''Reactivate'' enough that the original deadline was extended by a full year to try and save it, but by summer of 2024, Splash Damage only had one demo level to show for all their time and effort, and it became clear to everyone that the project wouldn't be able to be salvaged, forcing Tencent to pull the plug. With ''Reactivate'' helping keep the studio afloat, Splash Damage spent the next half a year looking for someone to provide additional funding for the game or offer the team a new project to fill the gap ''Reactivate'' left, but when those efforts failed, they made the hard decision to fully cut their losses.

The game was finally announced as cancelled via Splash Damage's Twitter account on [[January 8]], [[2025]]. Far more sobering was the accompanying announcement that the studio would be downsizing, leaving roughly over 100 hard-working employees jobless as a result of the aforementioned funding struggles, a depressing end to the whole unfortunate saga.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=Today, we have some very difficult news to share, the decision has been made to end development of Transformers: Reactivate. This means we will be scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects. Unfortunately, despite every effort, a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy. This decision did not come lightly, and it is a difficult time for the studio and our people. We want to take a moment to thank the team who worked on Transformers for their dedication and passion. Hasbro was an incredible and supportive partner throughout, and we hope to work with them again. To the many fans, your excitement and support helped keep us going. While not being able to see the game through to release is painful, having to say goodbye to friends and colleagues hurts even more. We're now focused on doing everything we can to support them through this tough period, just as we are committed to caring for those who will stay with us as we build a stronger Splash Damage for the future. Thank you for your compassion and understanding. |link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1877020458454749485 |name=Splash Damage |site=Twitter |year=2025|month=01|day=08}}</ref> Some additional details have emerged in the time since, such as extfdev's post, [[Simon Furman]]'s confirmation that he was contributing to the story, and even more leaked footage from both Certain Affinity's version and Splash Damage's last GaaS build, but by and large, far as we can tell, the story of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' is now officially over. [[Furmanism|Finished]].

==Toyline==
[[File:RiseBumblebee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67| Released just a few months ahead of being sold as a concept art figure.]]
Standing testament to the game's fraught development cycle is the troubled tale of its tie-in toys from [[Hasbro]]. The first public evidence of these products surfaced in early 2021, when store listings under the codename "Shine" (as in "rise and shine") for a pair of two-packs were first discovered.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/im-drunk-and-from-leak-squad-i-quit-it-and-here-it-is-on-a-throwaway.1205827/page-597#post-19019847 TFW2005 post from Jtprime17]</ref> The packs' Hasbro product numbers (which are broadly assigned in numerical order) suggested they were developed around the same time as 2021's ''[[War for Cybertron: Kingdom]]'' toyline, and a confidential slide leaked years later indeed confirmed that, at one stage, these figures were intended to hit shelves late that year.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TFU_INFO/status/1714670388246978948 Leaked slide shared on Twitter by TFU.info]</ref>

The packs were delayed from that planned 2021 launch, no doubt in the hope of still aligning with the release of ''Reactivate'' itself, but with the game's development continuing to stretch on, it seems Hasbro eventually grew tired of waiting and officially launched both packs in November 2023—although some retailers inadvertently listed the Starscream/Bumblebee pack a month early, complete with an out-of-date set of [[stock photography]] which depicted the products in a ''Transformers: Rise''-branded box.<ref>[https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/10/18/first-look-at-transformers-rise-starscream-bumblebee-2-pack-496772 ''Rise'' stock photos on TFW2005]</ref>

The next year, and once again not in connection with any news or update on the game itself, Hasbro re-released the Bumblebee figure by itself in the ''[[Studio Series]]'' toyline's Deluxe Class assortment, as part of the line's "Gamer Edition" sub-branding.

{| style="margin-left:1em;" width="100%"
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Reactivate'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Soundwave (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Soundwave]] / [[Optimus Prime (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Optimus Prime]]}}
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Starscream (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Starscream]] / [[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Studio Series'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1|[[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#SSReactivate|Gamer Edition Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|}

==Notes==
[[File:Transformers Reactivate key art.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|]]
* The game's now-unlisted teaser trailer featured a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9uyAVi9wWc song cover] of {{w|Bon Jovi}}'s "{{w|Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)|Wanted Dead or Alive}}", performed by Empara Mi and dreamchild.
* The game's key art features a billboard for [[Prim Cola]], a piece of rubble with the [[Earth Defense Command|EDC]] logo painted on it, and the head of the [[Statue of Liberty]] with the text [[The New Order|"ARE ALL DEAD?"]] scratched into it.
* During the teaser trailer, Bumblebee scans one of the humans to compare her to an image of [[Marissa Faireborn]] in his database. Leaks would reveal this to be a descendant of hers, Andrea Faireborn (renamed Cassandra Faireborn in later builds).
* In an early product description for the ''Reactivate'' (then ''Rise'') Optimus and Soundwave 2-pack, the alien invaders were identified as the [[Quintesson]]s, suggesting they were either replaced by or the progenitors of the Legion.
* Leaked concept art for the game shows [[FIRRIB|Rumble is blue]].
* In leaked footage, Bumblebee's bio also refers to him as "B-127" like his [[Bumblebee (Movie)|live action counterpart]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.playtfr.com/ Official website]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBK2ZpYY_0 Teaser trailer]
* [https://www.tiktok.com/@playtfr TikTok page]
* [https://twitter.com/PlayTFR Twitter page]
* [https://www.instagram.com/playtfr/ Instagram page (deactivated)]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reactivate}}
[[Category: Generation 1 video games]]
[[Category: Things that don't exist]]

Transformers: Reactivate

2025-02-10T17:56:13Z

Nembert: Laserbeak, Ravage and Rumble all had models at Certain Affinity, not sure on Frenzy so omitting for now.

{{videogame
|title=''Transformers: Reactivate''
|japanese=
|image= Transformers Reactivate Logo.png
|caption=Yeah, yeah, get your "Deactivated" jokes out of your system.
|prev=
|next=
|developer=[[Certain Affinity]] [[Splash Damage]]
|publisher=
|writer=[[Simon Furman]]<ref>{{citesocial|quote=I'm hearing the plug has officially been pulled on Splash Damage's #Transformers: Reactivate game. I've been contributing story, lore, character work & dialog to the project, alongside amazing teams and creatives. It could - and should - have been the best TF game ever. Very sad.|link=https://twitter.com/SimonFurman3/status/1877275986170986918|name=Simon Furman|site=Twitter|year=2025|month=01|day=09}}</ref>
|date=Cancelled
|platform=PC, consoles
}}

'''''Transformers: Reactivate''''' is a cancelled online multiplayer game developed by [[Splash Damage]]. It was announced in [[December]] [[2022]] via a teaser trailer that was pretty scant on details, with a closed beta was planned to happen [[soon]]. However, due to an infamously troubled development cycle, nothing of the game was shown outside of that teaser for another ''763 days'', leaving many to question the state of the project. The game was ultimately announced as cancelled in [[January]] [[2025]], seemingly existing as little more than vaporware to the world at large.

In truth, however, the story was much more complicated. Spending nearly seven long years in development across two developers, ''Reactivate'' was beset by multiple troubles that hampered progress, and the bulk of our knowledge about the game comes from anonymous development team members and leaks that showed more of the product than was ''ever'' officially confirmed, including playable characters, gameplay mechanics, and an attempted overall transition from a microtransaction-laden live service game to a premium AAA experience.

==Plot==
[[File: Transformers Reactivate screenshot20220812 06.jpeg|upright=1.4|thumb|"We can rebuild him."]]

{{quote|The gravest threat to [[human]]ity has arrived. And it's already won. [[Earth]] is no longer ours; it belongs to them. All we have left is our hope for the [[Autobot]]s, as we salvage them from the rubble left behind.|Official website}}

Social media pages for the game told fans to "fight back against the Legion", indicating the name of the game's alien occupiers.

==Featured characters==
{{note|Keep in mind that the game's character roster was very much in flux, and while each of these characters was in the game ''at some point'', they may have been removed in later builds. But considering there is no "final" roster, we've elected to list everyone we know of for completion's sake.}}
{{featuredcharacters|
|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
*[[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] ([[Robbie Daymond]])
*[[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]]
*[[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] ([[Jamieson Price]])
*[[Windblade (G1)|Windblade]]
*[[Hot Rod (G1)|Hot Rod]]
*[[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]]
*[[Powerglide (G1)|Powerglide]]
*[[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]]
*[[Elita One (G1)|Elita One]]
*[[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]]
*[[Cliffjumper (G1)|Cliffjumper]]
|c2=
*[[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]
*[[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]] ([[Steve Blum]])
*[[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
**[[Laserbeak (G1)|Laserbeak]]
**[[Ravage (G1)|Ravage]]
**[[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]]
*[[Shockwave (G1)|Shockwave]]
*[[Slipstream (G1)|Slipstream]]
*[[Knock Out (G1)|Knock Out]]
*[[Horri-Bull]]
*[[Divebomb (G1)|Divebomb]]
|c3=
*Andrea/Cassandra Faireborn
*Delvin Winslow
*Markus Irving
*Persea Anand
|c4=
*Legion
|nonumbering=true}}

==Development history==
Calling the development of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' "tumultuous" would be like calling the Decepticons "kinda mean". From its quiet announcement to its ignominious end, the project went through a series of hardships throughout its development, much of which was never publicly confirmed due to the parties involved being under strict NDA. As a result, it's difficult to be 100% certain of exactly what happened...but we're going to try our best anyway. Thus, we've cobbled together the following summary of events from public announcements, various leaks, postmortem analyses, and other assorted sources in an attempt to paint a clearer picture of why this game was never released. Some details will inevitably be inaccurate due to the secrecy surrounding the game and the nature by which much of this information was obtained, but barring any sort of additional tell-all from other members of either development team, this is probably the closest we can get to the full story with the information we have available.

Word of the game's existence first surfaced at the end of 2017, around the same time as [[Activision]]'s exclusivity deal with [[Hasbro]] to produce ''Transformers'' games came to an end. In Chinese holding company {{w|Leyou}}'s annual report for that year, they stated that they had entered into a licensing agreement with [[Hasbro]] back in August to produce a massively multiplayer online shooter based on the property, similar to their hit game ''{{w|Warframe}}'', and had tapped recently acquired American game studio {{w|Certain Affinity}} to develop it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20201118133639/https://www.files.services/files/359/2018/0420/20180420121501_95996174_en.pdf Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2017 Annual Report] (archived)</ref> Not much would be said about the project for most of the following year, presumably because work was still very early, though Certain Affinity CEO Max Hoberman stated in an August 2018 interview that the project was both their biggest to date and their first time utilizing the free-to-play games as a service (GaaS) model.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=There's multiple transitions that we're going through as a company as we prepare for this. In that sense, both the Transformers game and Last Expedition have been designed from the ground up to be games as a service, to be games that become people's hobbies that they play day in and day out, for months and years, and that we're continuously improving and enhancing.|link=https://venturebeat.com/games/certain-affinity-is-ready-for-the-limelight-with-games-as-a-service-model/|name=Max Hoberman|site=VentureBeat|year=2018|month=08|day=04}}</ref> Leyou also confirmed in their annual report for that year that the game's budget had increased from $15 million to $33 million.<ref>[https://docslib.org/doc/4334356/annual-report-2018-report-annual-contents Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2018 Annual Report] (archived)</ref>

The game was publicly announced by Leyou in August 2019 at the Chinajoy 2019 event, under the tentative title of ''Transformers Online'', and that it would be released for both PC and unspecified consoles (presumably the [[Xbox|Xbox Series X/S]] and [[PlayStation|PlayStation 5]], given the timeframe).<ref>[https://mmoculture.com/2019/08/leyou-ambitious-company-reveals-new-transformers-and-civilization-online-games/ Leyou – Ambitious company reveals new Transformers and Civilization online games – MMO Culture]</ref> This would be the main news about the game for the year, with nothing else of it mentioned by anyone involved aside from the fact that it was still being worked on. In January of 2020, a former Certain Affinity employee was found to have listed "''Transformers: Impact''" on their résumé, suggesting that this was the game's real title.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/certain-affinitys-transformers-online.1167054/page-17#post-17886902 jungle penguins on TFW2005]</ref> Later in July, Leyou issued a press release stating that they had invested another $10 million into Certain Affinity to improve the game, and that an open beta period would be beginning soon, with 70% of its "core gameplay" completed.<ref>[http://northeurope.blob.euroland.com/press-releases-attachments/1236288/HKEX-EPS_20200706_9346969-0.PDF Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref> A month later, Leyou made the announcement that British studio [[Splash Damage]], another developer under their purview, would be assisting with ''Impact''{{'}}s development going forward.<ref>[https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2020/0821/2020082100849.pdf Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref>

Things would take a bit of a turn in August 2020 when Chinese media conglomerate Tencent made a bid to acquire Leyou for $1.5 billion, which would ultimately be finalized in December.<ref>[https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/tencent-officially-acquires-splash-damage-parent-leyou-in-1-5-billion-deal Tencent officially acquires Splash Damage parent Leyou in $1.5 billion deal — Game Developer]</ref> As a result of this, a handful of Leyou documents were made public, including what appeared to be early pitch slides for ''Transformers: Impact''. The slides described a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons over an alien superweapon called the Aegis, which is destroyed in the battle in a massive explosion that wipes out most of the Transformers; with the shards of the Aegis landing on Earth and starting to corrupt the planet, the remaining Autobots and Decepticons are forced to band together to survive. The presentation also elaborated on the gameplay loop, live service elements, and other plans, including the original planned release of Q4 2018 for early access and Q2 2019 for the full launch. Obviously, that didn't happen, leading to multiple date amendments in the presentation, with the most recent placing the hard deadline for launch as October 31, 2021 for the open beta, and April 30, 2022 for the full release; presumably Splash Damage was brought on to help make sure the project hit these dates.<ref>[https://wccftech.com/transformers-online-mix-destiny-warframe-targeting-october-2021/ Transformers Online Designed as a Mix of Destiny and Warframe, Targeting October 2021 for the Open Beta — WCCFTech]</ref> Most of 2021 would go by without any further news, save for the name ''Transformers: Rise'' appearing on a Certain Affinity employee's résumé and an unspecified Chinese company registering "www.transformersrise.com", both seemingly pointing to a title change. However, it was also around this time that the public learned of massive walkouts at Leyou following the Tencent acquisition, including CEO Alexa Xu. Several former employees claimed that leadership had only acquired major licenses like ''Transformers'' and ''{{w|Lord of the Rings}}'' to make the company look better and potentially make more from the buyout, with no intention of ever actually finishing the games, though these claims were never substantiated.<ref>[https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3145836/why-tencent-spent-us13-billion-buy-video-gaming-firm-leyou-left-it Analysis | Why Tencent spent US$1.3 billion to buy video gaming firm Leyou, but left it to languish — South China Morning Post]</ref> Regardless of whether or not they were true, though, the whole thing left many fans feeling a lot more apprehensive about the project, as by this point, not only had the "deadline" for the open beta come and gone, but not a single screenshot or piece of footage had been officially released.

''UN''officially, however, late 2022 is when the leaks really started coming. Less of a leak, more of a dam bursting, really. In just a few months, tons of information and media from Certain Affinity's work on ''Rise'' up to that point started to make its way out into the public sphere, gathered from development team member websites and other anonymous sources. This included unfinished character models and renders, fully-voiced cutscenes, images of the UI, and more. These leaks also gave us the first details of the game's ''new'' story, which focused on an alien threat known as "Legion" that had already conquered Earth decades prior, wiping out most of humanity and taking the Transformers offline, along with a ragtag band of human survivors working to restore the Transformers to help them fight back. Though attempts were made by Hasbro and the dev team to take it all down and scrub the evidence from the internet, fans had already taken notice, and more ''Rise'' details continued to emerge over the course of the next two years, including actual gameplay footage. It was also around this time that fans pieced together from developer résumés that Certain Affinity had been taken off the project, with Splash Damage taking over as lead developer.

On [[December 8]], [[2022]], ''Transformers: Reactivate'' was finally officially announced via a teaser trailer presented at {{w|The Game Awards 2022}}. Despite all the leaks up to that point, this was the first (and ultimately ''only'') time fans had gotten to see anything official of the game, as well as the first mention of the final title and the first public confirmation of development transitioning to Splash Damage. After another full year of radio silence, it was then announced in December 2023 that any further news on the game would be delayed until some unspecified time in 2024, due to the project being migrated to {{w|Unreal Engine 5}}<ref>{{citesocial|quote=We know that everyone has been patiently waiting for updates on TRANSFORMERS: REACTIVATE, however, we won't be revealing any new content this year. Your passion and enthusiasm powers our mission to create THE Transformers game fans have been waiting for, and we've now shifted to developing the game in Unreal Engine 5! Stay tuned for exciting reveals and epic developments in 2024!|link=https://twitter.com/PlayTFR/status/1732437280944505315|name=Transformers: Reactivate|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=12|day=06}}</ref> (something which Splash Damage had previously confirmed back in March at the Game Developers Conference<ref>{{cite social|quote=You might have just seen our logo and some of our key art, so... Transformers: Reactivate and Project Astrid are being built in Unreal Engine 5. Join us to help build those amazing worlds: https://careers.splashdamage.com #GDC #StateofUnreal|link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1638589439650799619|name=Splash Damage|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=03|day=22}}</ref>). This was the last official word on the game for a very long time, with 2024 coming and going without any further mention. The extended silence led a number of people to presume that the project had finally gotten the axe, and though many fans refused to believe it, the writing was on the wall. By June 2024, the game's trailer was silently delisted from the game's official accounts, likely as a result of the license for the trailer's music expiring. The game's Instagram page was similarly deactivated later that year.

Behind the scenes, however, things had hit a roadblock well before even that teaser trailer was released. Compared to the Certain Affinity builds, media of which continued to leak even after being taken off the project, Splash Damage kept things much more under wraps, with no media reaching the public sphere until after the game had already been cancelled. As a result, the majority of our knowledge of what happened during this period comes from a Reddit post by an anonymous Splash Damage employee, who posted under the apt name "extfdev" after the cancellation was confirmed.<ref>{{citesocial|link=https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/comments/1hxlmdy/comment/m6erepy/?rdt=38652|name=extfdev|site=Reddit|year=2025|month=01|day=10}}</ref> In their post, extfdev confirmed that Splash Damage had become the primary developer on ''Reactivate'' around the time of the Tencent deal, and at first attempted to continue where they and Certain Affinity had left off, though many details such as the story and setting were in constant flux. It wasn't long, though, before they became very aware that the GaaS model wouldn't be doing the game any favors, with high-profile failures like ''{{w|Marvel's Avengers (video game)|Marvel's Avengers}}'' acting as a cautionary tale. As a result, the team decided to pivot the game to a standalone triple-A experience instead. The problem, however, was that beyond "make an awesome big budget ''Transformers'' game", nothing else ever really solidified in terms of direction.

According to extfdev, this came down to a lack of clear vision from the top-down: With their acquisition by Tencent, they were free to work on their own projects without having to settle for being a work-for-hire studio as they had been up to that point; however, without another company to provide direction on the project, Splash Damage struggled with finding that direction themselves. Multiple individuals took on project leadership roles, then forced the team to undo months of work by changing something they weren't happy with, before leaving and being replaced with someone else. This process repeated countless times and left ''Reactivate''{{'}}s dev team stuck going in circles, constantly remaking what they already had instead of making meaningful forward progress. Gameplay progression switched from open-world to level-based to a blend of the two likened to ''{{w|Tom Clancy's The Division}}''. Features like raid bosses and a horde mode were added and dropped. Characters were designed and redesigned and redesigned again. By the end, the team had created lots of unused assets...but no actual game. Tencent believed in ''Reactivate'' enough that the original deadline was extended by a full year to try and save it, but by summer of 2024, Splash Damage only had one demo level to show for all their time and effort, and it became clear to everyone that the project wouldn't be able to be salvaged, forcing Tencent to pull the plug. With ''Reactivate'' helping keep the studio afloat, Splash Damage spent the next half a year looking for someone to provide additional funding for the game or offer the team a new project to fill the gap ''Reactivate'' left, but when those efforts failed, they made the hard decision to fully cut their losses.

The game was finally announced as cancelled via Splash Damage's Twitter account on [[January 8]], [[2025]]. Far more sobering was the accompanying announcement that the studio would be downsizing, leaving multiple hard-working employees jobless as a result of the aforementioned funding struggles, a depressing end to the whole unfortunate saga.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=Today, we have some very difficult news to share, the decision has been made to end development of Transformers: Reactivate. This means we will be scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects. Unfortunately, despite every effort, a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy. This decision did not come lightly, and it is a difficult time for the studio and our people. We want to take a moment to thank the team who worked on Transofrmers for their dedication and passion. Hasbro was an incredible and supportive partner throughout, and we hope to work with them again. To the many fans, your excitement and support helped keep us going. While not being able to see the game through to release is painful, having to say goodbye to friends and colleagues hurts even more. We're now focused on doing everything we can to support them through this tough period, just as we are committed to caring for those who will stay with us as we build a stronger Splash Damage for the future. Thank you for your compassion and understanding. |link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1877020458454749485 |name=Splash Damage |site=Twitter |year=2025|month=01|day=08}}</ref> Some additional details have emerged in the time since, such as extfdev's post, [[Simon Furman]]'s confirmation that he was contributing to the story, and a little bit of footage from Splash Damage's last GaaS build, but by and large, far as we can tell, the story of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' is now officially over. [[Furmanism|Finished]].

==Toyline==
[[File:RiseBumblebee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67| Released just a few months ahead of being sold as a concept art figure.]]
Standing testament to the game's fraught development cycle is the troubled tale of its tie-in toys from [[Hasbro]]. The first public evidence of these products surfaced in early 2021, when store listings under the codename "Shine" (as in "rise and shine") for a pair of two-packs were first discovered.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/im-drunk-and-from-leak-squad-i-quit-it-and-here-it-is-on-a-throwaway.1205827/page-597#post-19019847 TFW2005 post from Jtprime17]</ref> The packs' Hasbro product numbers (which are broadly assigned in numerical order) suggested they were developed around the same time as 2021's ''[[War for Cybertron: Kingdom]]'' toyline, and a confidential slide leaked years later indeed confirmed that, at one stage, these figures were intended to hit shelves late that year.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TFU_INFO/status/1714670388246978948 Leaked slide shared on Twitter by TFU.info]</ref>

The packs were delayed from that planned 2021 launch, no doubt in the hope of still aligning with the release of ''Reactivate'' itself, but with the game's development continuing to stretch on, it seems Hasbro eventually grew tired of waiting and officially launched both packs in November 2023—although some retailers inadvertently listed the Starscream/Bumblebee pack a month early, complete with an out-of-date set of [[stock photography]] which depicted the products in a ''Transformers: Rise''-branded box.<ref>[https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/10/18/first-look-at-transformers-rise-starscream-bumblebee-2-pack-496772 ''Rise'' stock photos on TFW2005]</ref>

The next year, and once again not in connection with any news or update on the game itself, Hasbro re-released the Bumblebee figure by itself in the ''[[Studio Series]]'' toyline's Deluxe Class assortment, as part of the line's "Gamer Edition" sub-branding.

{| style="margin-left:1em;" width="100%"
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Reactivate'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Soundwave (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Soundwave]] / [[Optimus Prime (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Optimus Prime]]}}
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Starscream (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Starscream]] / [[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Studio Series'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1|[[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#SSReactivate|Gamer Edition Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|}

==Notes==
* The game's now-unlisted teaser trailer featured a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9uyAVi9wWc song cover] of {{w|Bon Jovi}}'s "{{w|Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)|Wanted Dead or Alive}}", performed by Empara Mi and dreamchild.
* The game's key art features a billboard for [[Prim Cola]], a piece of rubble with the [[Earth Defense Command|EDC]] logo painted on it, and the head of the [[Statue of Liberty]] with the text [[The New Order|"ARE ALL DEAD?"]] scratched into it.
* During the teaser trailer, Bumblebee scans one of the humans to compare her to an image of [[Marissa Faireborn]] in his database. Leaks would reveal this to be a descendant of hers, Andrea Faireborn (renamed Cassandra Faireborn in later builds).
* In an early product description for the ''Reactivate'' (then ''Rise'') Optimus and Soundwave 2-pack, the alien invaders were identified as the [[Quintesson]]s, suggesting they were either replaced by or the true identity of the Legion.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.playtfr.com/ Official website]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBK2ZpYY_0 Teaser trailer]
* [https://www.tiktok.com/@playtfr TikTok page]
* [https://twitter.com/PlayTFR Twitter page]
* [https://www.instagram.com/playtfr/ Instagram page (deactivated)]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reactivate}}
[[Category:video games]]
[[Category: Things that don't exist]]

Transformers: Reactivate

2025-02-10T16:41:01Z

Nembert: Added CJ, Elita, Arcee, Horribull and Divebomb. These characters were all at some point being developed by Splash as found in a search on crt.sh. Also added known last names to the human characters

{{videogame
|title=''Transformers: Reactivate''
|japanese=
|image= Transformers Reactivate Logo.png
|caption=Yeah, yeah, get your "Deactivated" jokes out of your system.
|prev=
|next=
|developer=[[Certain Affinity]] [[Splash Damage]]
|publisher=
|writer=[[Simon Furman]]<ref>{{citesocial|quote=I'm hearing the plug has officially been pulled on Splash Damage's #Transformers: Reactivate game. I've been contributing story, lore, character work & dialog to the project, alongside amazing teams and creatives. It could - and should - have been the best TF game ever. Very sad.|link=https://twitter.com/SimonFurman3/status/1877275986170986918|name=Simon Furman|site=Twitter|year=2025|month=01|day=09}}</ref>
|date=Cancelled
|platform=PC, consoles
}}

'''''Transformers: Reactivate''''' is a cancelled online multiplayer game developed by [[Splash Damage]]. It was announced in [[December]] [[2022]] via a teaser trailer that was pretty scant on details, with a closed beta was planned to happen [[soon]]. However, due to an infamously troubled development cycle, nothing of the game was shown outside of that teaser for another ''763 days'', leaving many to question the state of the project. The game was ultimately announced as cancelled in [[January]] [[2025]], seemingly existing as little more than vaporware to the world at large.

In truth, however, the story was much more complicated. Spending nearly seven long years in development across two developers, ''Reactivate'' was beset by multiple troubles that hampered progress, and the bulk of our knowledge about the game comes from anonymous development team members and leaks that showed more of the product than was ''ever'' officially confirmed, including playable characters, gameplay mechanics, and an attempted overall transition from a microtransaction-laden live service game to a premium AAA experience.

==Plot==
[[File: Transformers Reactivate screenshot20220812 06.jpeg|upright=1.4|thumb|"We can rebuild him."]]

{{quote|The gravest threat to [[human]]ity has arrived. And it's already won. [[Earth]] is no longer ours; it belongs to them. All we have left is our hope for the [[Autobot]]s, as we salvage them from the rubble left behind.|Official website}}

Social media pages for the game told fans to "fight back against the Legion", indicating the name of the game's alien occupiers.

==Featured characters==
{{note|Keep in mind that the game's character roster was very much in flux, and while each of these characters was in the game ''at some point'', they may have been removed in later builds. But considering there is no "final" roster, we've elected to list everyone we know of for completion's sake.}}
{{featuredcharacters|
|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
*[[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] ([[Robbie Daymond]])
*[[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]]
*[[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] ([[Jamieson Price]])
*[[Windblade (G1)|Windblade]]
*[[Hot Rod (G1)|Hot Rod]]
*[[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]]
*[[Powerglide (G1)|Powerglide]]
*[[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]]
*[[Elita One (G1)|Elita One]]
*[[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]]
*[[Cliffjumper (G1)|Cliffjumper]]
|c2=
*[[Megatron (G1)|Megatron]]
*[[Starscream (G1)|Starscream]] ([[Steve Blum]])
*[[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]] ([[Jon Bailey]])
**[[Laserbeak (G1)|Laserbeak]]
*[[Shockwave (G1)|Shockwave]]
*[[Slipstream (G1)|Slipstream]]
*[[Knock Out (G1)|Knock Out]]
*[[Horri-Bull]]
*[[Divebomb (G1)|Divebomb]]
|c3=
*Andrea/Cassandra Faireborn
*Delvin Winslow
*Markus Irving
*Persea Anand
|c4=
*Legion
|nonumbering=true}}

==Development history==
Calling the development of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' "tumultuous" would be like calling the Decepticons "kinda mean". From its quiet announcement to its ignominious end, the project went through a series of hardships throughout its development, much of which was never publicly confirmed. As a result, it's difficult to be 100% certain of exactly what happened...but we're going to try our best anyway. Thus, we've cobbled together the following summary of events from public announcements, various leaks, postmortem analyses, and other assorted sources in an attempt to paint a clearer picture of why this game was never released. Some details will inevitably be inaccurate due to the secrecy surrounding the game and the nature by which much of this information was obtained, but barring any sort of additional tell-all from other members of either development team, this is probably the closest we can get to the full story with the information we have available.

Word of the game's existence first surfaced at the end of 2017, around the same time as [[Activision]]'s exclusivity deal with [[Hasbro]] to produce ''Transformers'' games came to an end. In Chinese holding company {{w|Leyou}}'s annual report for that year, they stated that they had entered into a licensing agreement with [[Hasbro]] back in August to produce a massively multiplayer online shooter based on the property, similar to their hit game ''{{w|Warframe}}'', and had tapped recently acquired American game studio {{w|Certain Affinity}} to develop it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20201118133639/https://www.files.services/files/359/2018/0420/20180420121501_95996174_en.pdf Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2017 Annual Report] (archived)</ref> Not much would be said about the project for most of the following year, presumably because work was still very early, though Certain Affinity CEO Max Hoberman stated in an August 2018 interview that the project was both their biggest to date and their first time utilizing the free-to-play games as a service (GaaS) model.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=There's multiple transitions that we're going through as a company as we prepare for this. In that sense, both the Transformers game and Last Expedition have been designed from the ground up to be games as a service, to be games that become people's hobbies that they play day in and day out, for months and years, and that we're continuously improving and enhancing.|link=https://venturebeat.com/games/certain-affinity-is-ready-for-the-limelight-with-games-as-a-service-model/|name=Max Hoberman|site=VentureBeat|year=2018|month=08|day=04}}</ref> Leyou also confirmed in their annual report for that year that the game's budget had increased from $15 million to $33 million.<ref>[https://docslib.org/doc/4334356/annual-report-2018-report-annual-contents Leyou Technology Holdings Ltd. 2018 Annual Report] (archived)</ref>

The game was publicly announced by Leyou in August 2019 at the Chinajoy 2019 event, under the tentative title of ''Transformers Online'', and that it would be released for both PC and unspecified consoles (presumably the [[Xbox|Xbox Series X/S]] and [[PlayStation|PlayStation 5]], given the timeframe).<ref>[https://mmoculture.com/2019/08/leyou-ambitious-company-reveals-new-transformers-and-civilization-online-games/ Leyou – Ambitious company reveals new Transformers and Civilization online games – MMO Culture]</ref> This would be the main news about the game for the year, with nothing else of it mentioned by anyone involved aside from the fact that it was still being worked on. In January of 2020, a former Certain Affinity employee was found to have listed "''Transformers: Impact''" on their résumé, suggesting that this was the game's real title.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/certain-affinitys-transformers-online.1167054/page-17#post-17886902 jungle penguins on TFW2005]</ref> Later in July, Leyou issued a press release stating that they had invested another $10 million into Certain Affinity to improve the game, and that an open beta period would be beginning soon, with 70% of its "core gameplay" completed.<ref>[http://northeurope.blob.euroland.com/press-releases-attachments/1236288/HKEX-EPS_20200706_9346969-0.PDF Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref> A month later, Leyou made the announcement that British studio [[Splash Damage]], another developer under their purview, would be assisting with ''Impact''{{'}}s development going forward.<ref>[https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2020/0821/2020082100849.pdf Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. press release]</ref>

Things would take a bit of a turn in August 2020 when Chinese media conglomerate Tencent made a bid to acquire Leyou for $1.5 billion, which would ultimately be finalized in December.<ref>[https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/tencent-officially-acquires-splash-damage-parent-leyou-in-1-5-billion-deal Tencent officially acquires Splash Damage parent Leyou in $1.5 billion deal — Game Developer]</ref> As a result of this, a handful of Leyou documents were made public, including what appeared to be early pitch slides for ''Transformers: Impact''. The slides described a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons over an alien superweapon called the Aegis, which is destroyed in the battle in a massive explosion that wipes out most of the Transformers; with the shards of the Aegis landing on Earth and starting to corrupt the planet, the remaining Autobots and Decepticons are forced to band together to survive. The presentation also elaborated on the gameplay loop, live service elements, and other plans, including the original planned release of Q4 2018 for early access and Q2 2019 for the full launch. Obviously, that didn't happen, leading to multiple date amendments in the presentation, with the most recent placing the hard deadline for launch as October 31, 2021 for the open beta, and April 30, 2022 for the full release; presumably Splash Damage was brought on to help make sure the project hit these dates.<ref>[https://wccftech.com/transformers-online-mix-destiny-warframe-targeting-october-2021/ Transformers Online Designed as a Mix of Destiny and Warframe, Targeting October 2021 for the Open Beta — WCCFTech]</ref> Most of 2021 would go by without any further news, save for the name ''Transformers: Rise'' appearing on a Certain Affinity employee's résumé and an unspecified Chinese company registering "www.transformersrise.com", both seemingly pointing to a title change. However, it was also around this time that the public learned of massive walkouts at Leyou following the Tencent acquisition, including CEO Alexa Xu. Several former employees claimed that leadership had only acquired major licenses like ''Transformers'' and ''{{w|Lord of the Rings}}'' to make the company look better and potentially make more from the buyout, with no intention of ever actually finishing the games, though these claims were never substantiated.<ref>[https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3145836/why-tencent-spent-us13-billion-buy-video-gaming-firm-leyou-left-it Analysis | Why Tencent spent US$1.3 billion to buy video gaming firm Leyou, but left it to languish — South China Morning Post]</ref> Regardless of whether or not they were true, though, the whole thing left many fans feeling a lot more apprehensive about the project, as by this point, not only had the "deadline" for the open beta come and gone, but not a single screenshot or piece of footage had been officially released.

''UN''officially, however, late 2022 is when the leaks really started coming. Less of a leak, more of a dam bursting, really. In just a few months, tons of information and media from Certain Affinity's work on ''Rise'' up to that point started to make its way out into the public sphere, gathered from development team member websites and other anonymous sources. This included unfinished character models and renders, fully-voiced cutscenes, images of the UI, and more. These leaks also gave us the first details of the game's ''new'' story, which focused on an alien threat known as "Legion" that had already conquered Earth decades prior, wiping out most of humanity and taking the Transformers offline, along with a ragtag band of human survivors working to restore the Transformers to help them fight back. Though attempts were made by Hasbro and the dev team to take it all down and scrub the evidence from the internet, fans had already taken notice, and more ''Rise'' details continued to emerge over the course of the next two years, including actual gameplay footage. It was also around this time that fans pieced together from developer résumés that Certain Affinity had been taken off the project, with Splash Damage taking over as lead developer.

On [[December 8]], [[2022]], ''Transformers: Reactivate'' was finally officially announced via a teaser trailer presented at {{w|The Game Awards 2022}}. Despite all the leaks up to that point, this was the first (and ultimately ''only'') time fans had gotten to see anything official of the game, as well as the first mention of the final title and the first public confirmation of development transitioning to Splash Damage. After another full year of radio silence, it was then announced in December 2023 that any further news on the game would be delayed until some unspecified time in 2024, due to the project being migrated to {{w|Unreal Engine 5}}<ref>{{citesocial|quote=We know that everyone has been patiently waiting for updates on TRANSFORMERS: REACTIVATE, however, we won't be revealing any new content this year. Your passion and enthusiasm powers our mission to create THE Transformers game fans have been waiting for, and we've now shifted to developing the game in Unreal Engine 5! Stay tuned for exciting reveals and epic developments in 2024!|link=https://twitter.com/PlayTFR/status/1732437280944505315|name=Transformers: Reactivate|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=12|day=06}}</ref> (something which Splash Damage had previously confirmed back in March at the Game Developers Conference<ref>{{cite social|quote=You might have just seen our logo and some of our key art, so... Transformers: Reactivate and Project Astrid are being built in Unreal Engine 5. Join us to help build those amazing worlds: https://careers.splashdamage.com #GDC #StateofUnreal|link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1638589439650799619|name=Splash Damage|site=Twitter|year=2023|month=03|day=22}}</ref>). This was the last official word on the game for a very long time, with 2024 coming and going without any further mention. The extended silence led a number of people to presume that the project had finally gotten the axe, and though many fans refused to believe it, the writing was on the wall. By June 2024, the game's trailer was silently delisted from the game's official accounts, likely as a result of the license for the trailer's music expiring. The game's Instagram page was similarly deactivated later that year.

Behind the scenes, however, things had hit a roadblock well before even that teaser trailer was released. Compared to the Certain Affinity builds, media of which continued to leak even after being taken off the project, Splash Damage kept things much more under wraps, with no media reaching the public sphere until after the game had already been cancelled. As a result, the majority of our knowledge of what happened during this period comes from a Reddit post by an anonymous Splash Damage employee, who posted under the apt name "extfdev" after the cancellation was confirmed.<ref>{{citesocial|link=https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/comments/1hxlmdy/comment/m6erepy/?rdt=38652|name=extfdev|site=Reddit|year=2025|month=01|day=10}}</ref> In their post, extfdev confirmed that Splash Damage had become the primary developer on ''Reactivate'' around the time of the Tencent deal, and at first attempted to continue where they and Certain Affinity had left off, though many details such as the story and setting were in constant flux. It wasn't long, though, before they became very aware that the GaaS model wouldn't be doing the game any favors, with high-profile failures like ''{{w|Marvel's Avengers (video game)|Marvel's Avengers}}'' acting as a cautionary tale. As a result, the team decided to pivot the game to a standalone triple-A experience instead. The problem, however, was that beyond "make an awesome big budget ''Transformers'' game", nothing else ever really solidified in terms of direction.

According to extfdev, this came down to a lack of clear vision from the top-down: With their acquisition by Tencent, they were free to work on their own projects without having to settle for being a work-for-hire studio as they had been up to that point; however, without another company to provide direction on the project, Splash Damage struggled with finding that direction themselves. Multiple individuals took on project leadership roles, then forced the team to undo months of work by changing something they weren't happy with, before leaving and being replaced with someone else. This process repeated countless times and left ''Reactivate''{{'}}s dev team stuck going in circles, constantly remaking what they already had instead of making meaningful forward progress. Gameplay progression switched from open-world to level-based to a blend of the two likened to ''{{w|Tom Clancy's The Division}}''. Features like raid bosses and a horde mode were added and dropped. Characters were designed and redesigned and redesigned again. By the end, the team had created lots of unused assets...but no actual game. Tencent believed in ''Reactivate'' enough that the original deadline was extended by a full year to try and save it, but by summer of 2024, Splash Damage only had one demo level to show for all their time and effort, and it became clear to everyone that the project wouldn't be able to be salvaged, forcing Tencent to pull the plug. With ''Reactivate'' helping keep the studio afloat, Splash Damage spent the next half a year looking for someone to provide additional funding for the game or offer the team a new project to fill the gap ''Reactivate'' left, but when those efforts failed, they made the hard decision to fully cut their losses.

The game was finally announced as cancelled via Splash Damage's Twitter account on [[January 8]], [[2025]]. Far more sobering was the accompanying announcement that the studio would be downsizing, leaving multiple hard-working employees jobless as a result of the aforementioned funding struggles, a depressing end to the whole unfortunate saga.<ref>{{citesocial|quote=Today, we have some very difficult news to share, the decision has been made to end development of Transformers: Reactivate. This means we will be scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects. Unfortunately, despite every effort, a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy. This decision did not come lightly, and it is a difficult time for the studio and our people. We want to take a moment to thank the team who worked on Transofrmers for their dedication and passion. Hasbro was an incredible and supportive partner throughout, and we hope to work with them again. To the many fans, your excitement and support helped keep us going. While not being able to see the game through to release is painful, having to say goodbye to friends and colleagues hurts even more. We're now focused on doing everything we can to support them through this tough period, just as we are committed to caring for those who will stay with us as we build a stronger Splash Damage for the future. Thank you for your compassion and understanding. |link=https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/1877020458454749485 |name=Splash Damage |site=Twitter |year=2025|month=01|day=08}}</ref> Some additional details have emerged in the time since, such as extfdev's post, [[Simon Furman]]'s confirmation that he was contributing to the story, and a little bit of footage from Splash Damage's last GaaS build, but by and large, far as we can tell, the story of ''Transformers: Reactivate'' is now officially over. [[Furmanism|Finished]].

==Toyline==
[[File:RiseBumblebee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67| Released just a few months ahead of being sold as a concept art figure.]]
Standing testament to the game's fraught development cycle is the troubled tale of its tie-in toys from [[Hasbro]]. The first public evidence of these products surfaced in early 2021, when store listings under the codename "Shine" (as in "rise and shine") for a pair of two-packs were first discovered.<ref>[https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/im-drunk-and-from-leak-squad-i-quit-it-and-here-it-is-on-a-throwaway.1205827/page-597#post-19019847 TFW2005 post from Jtprime17]</ref> The packs' Hasbro product numbers (which are broadly assigned in numerical order) suggested they were developed around the same time as 2021's ''[[War for Cybertron: Kingdom]]'' toyline, and a confidential slide leaked years later indeed confirmed that, at one stage, these figures were intended to hit shelves late that year.<ref>[https://twitter.com/TFU_INFO/status/1714670388246978948 Leaked slide shared on Twitter by TFU.info]</ref>

The packs were delayed from that planned 2021 launch, no doubt in the hope of still aligning with the release of ''Reactivate'' itself, but with the game's development continuing to stretch on, it seems Hasbro eventually grew tired of waiting and officially launched both packs in November 2023—although some retailers inadvertently listed the Starscream/Bumblebee pack a month early, complete with an out-of-date set of [[stock photography]] which depicted the products in a ''Transformers: Rise''-branded box.<ref>[https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/10/18/first-look-at-transformers-rise-starscream-bumblebee-2-pack-496772 ''Rise'' stock photos on TFW2005]</ref>

The next year, and once again not in connection with any news or update on the game itself, Hasbro re-released the Bumblebee figure by itself in the ''[[Studio Series]]'' toyline's Deluxe Class assortment, as part of the line's "Gamer Edition" sub-branding.

{| style="margin-left:1em;" width="100%"
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Reactivate'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Soundwave (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Soundwave]] / [[Optimus Prime (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Optimus Prime]]}}
{{Bp-a1d1|[[Starscream (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Starscream]] / [[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#Reactivate|Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|'''''Studio Series'''''
<ul class="iconlist">
{{Bp-a1|[[Bumblebee (G1)/toys#SSReactivate|Gamer Edition Bumblebee]]}}
</ul>
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|
|width="20%" valign="top"|
|}

==Notes==
* The game's now-unlisted teaser trailer featured a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9uyAVi9wWc song cover] of {{w|Bon Jovi}}'s "{{w|Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)|Wanted Dead or Alive}}", performed by Empara Mi and dreamchild.
* The game's key art features a billboard for [[Prim Cola]], a piece of rubble with the [[Earth Defense Command|EDC]] logo painted on it, and the head of the [[Statue of Liberty]] with the text [[The New Order|"ARE ALL DEAD?"]] scratched into it.
* During the teaser trailer, Bumblebee scans one of the humans to compare her to an image of [[Marissa Faireborn]] in his database. Leaks would reveal this to be a descendant of hers, Andrea Faireborn (renamed Cassandra Faireborn in later builds).
* In an early product description for the ''Reactivate'' (then ''Rise'') Optimus and Soundwave 2-pack, the alien invaders were identified as the [[Quintesson]]s, suggesting they were either replaced by or the true identity of the Legion.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.playtfr.com/ Official website]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBK2ZpYY_0 Teaser trailer]
* [https://www.tiktok.com/@playtfr TikTok page]
* [https://twitter.com/PlayTFR Twitter page]
* [https://www.instagram.com/playtfr/ Instagram page (deactivated)]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reactivate}}
[[Category:video games]]
[[Category: Things that don't exist]]

Talk:Transformers: Reactivate

2025-01-08T19:05:39Z

Nembert: /* Cancellation */

Yeah, no, it is too early to be making a page for this game, you should've waited until some gameplay footage was released. [[User:JJ2104|JJ2104]] ([[User talk:JJ2104|talk]]) 07:54, 9 December 2022 (EST)
:I'm going to disagree here. They announced the damn thing on one of the biggest pieces of video game press-like product in the English-speaking world. It'd be almost malpractice to not have SOMETHING up, even if it's a skeleton of a page that says "look, sorry, they didn't tell us jack diddley, this is all there is to know, try again later." Plus, why let Fandom get all the clicks? --[[User:M Sipher|M Sipher]] ([[User talk:M Sipher|talk]]) 09:05, 9 December 2022 (EST)

== Toyline page ==

I know everything about this game is getting out ''very'' slowly and in dubious ways, but it's been a while now since those two 2-packs were released and I think that's enough for a "Reactivate (toyline)" page to be created. Even if the line is already dead and replaced by single releases on Studio Series, it still technically existed as its own thing even if very briefly. Plus, there are many examples of extremely short-lived lines that got their own pages too. Anyone agrees? -- [[User:Fritz|Fritz]] ([[User talk:Fritz|talk]]) 12:25, 3 October 2024 (EDT)
:I'd argue in the absence of any actual game material, this page could also work ''as'' the toyline page, at least until we have real proof of life again. If the game ever seems like it's actually coming out, we can split off the toys from there. -- [[User:Cyberlink420|Cyberlink420]] ([[User talk:Cyberlink420|talk]]) 12:28, 3 October 2024 (EDT)

==Cancellation==
Should we update the page to say the game had been cancelled? I'm seeing posts online showing Splash Damage announcing the game's cancellation.--[[User:CyclonustheWarrior|CyclonustheWarrior]] ([[User talk:CyclonustheWarrior|talk]]) 11:39, 8 January 2025 (EST)
:I want to add onto this. Now that the game has been officially cancelled, would it be okay to write about what the game was going to be, based off what was shown in various leaks? I've been researching this game since before its announcement and have collected quite a lot of info about characters, plot, etc. But I know things like that are a bit of a gray area to say the least, but there is a lot that could be compiled for historical purposes. [[User:Nembert|Nembert]] ([[User talk:Nembert|talk]]) 14:05, 8 January 2025 (EST)