User:McBaggins/Legacy

We did it. We put the "s" in Generations.

Transformers: Legacy (aka Transformers Generations: Legacy) is a subline imprint of the Generations toyline, and the successor to the War for Cybertron Trilogy.

First revealed in late 2021 at Hasbro Pulse Con 2021, Legacy commemorates the approaching 40th anniversary of the Transformers brand by featuring new toys of characters from across the Transformers multiverse. The toys are largely in the scale and style of those from the War for Cybertron Trilogy, including numerous 3 mm posts and 5 mm ports from the C.O.M.B.A.T. System. Characters from franchises known for more unique aesthetics, such as Prime and Animated, are updated with the modern Generations aesthetic to fit with the rest of the toyline, which can range from a significant redesign to the same basic model just rendered more like a modern "Generation 1" toy. The toyline also sees the return of combiners from Hasbro for the first time since Power of the Primes, starting with the Stunticons in 2022.

The storytelling of Legacy follows characters brought together from across the multiverse as their universes collide. As such, non-"Generation 1" characters are (usually) given prefixes associated with their series of origin, such as "Cybertron Universe". Replacing the package bios of old is a QR code on the back of each box, or for Core Class figures, on the instructions, which leads to the character's bio on the Transformers website. Certain characters have also been given these prefixes to denote specific iterations, such as "Comic Universe" Impactor.

Unlike its predecessors, Legacy was not replaced by a new line with its own distinct title for its second and third years. Instead, it was given a refresh in the form of subline imprints titled Legacy: Evolution and Legacy: United, with the existing assortments continued in terms of distribution. Similar to its predecessors, the Legacy toyline features package refreshes of several figures from previous lines, even all the way back to Siege, though Legacy elects to remove the battle damage paint applications from these toys where applicable.

Toys

General retail

That's a lotta nuts!

The first year of Legacy (theoretically) focuses on characters that can "harness the power of Energon", with as many toys including an often-translucent accessory that the figure can wield in multiple ways and combine with others branded an "Energon-infused weapon", not too dissimilar to the 2003 Energon series. In keeping with this theme, the first wave of Core Class includes weapons specifically designed to combine into a large sword, but the gimmick was quietly dropped immediately after. Moreover, toys that do not utilize clear plastic in any part of their construction do not have these "energon infused" weapons, but some product descriptions do claim that the weapons are such. Their random nature can be chalked up to them having been designed before the character roster was finalized.

Legacy: Evolution, the second year of Legacy product, was announced in fall 2022 at that year's Pulse Con. This subline imprint not only broadened the range of past Transformers franchises characters could be pulled from, it retired the Energon-infused weapons in favor of a series of integrated weapons referred to collectively as "Evo-Fusion." Admittedly, many of these are just the same "combine and mount weapons somewhere on the figure" play gimmick that has been part of the Generations line for years, but hey. Supporting this is a continuation of the "Weaponizer" concept with a new tribe of modular Junkions that can mix and match body parts and accessories to create your own robot and vehicle modes, or armor and weaponry for other bots. Following Menasor, this subline's combiner is Volcanicus, made up of six Dinobots in the smaller Core Class. Evolution also puts some more focus on Armada characters to commemorate the series' 20th anniversary, although these new releases do not include any of the series' original Mini-Cons. The line also notably features the first mainline Animated toys since the show's cancellation in 2009; 2023 also marks the 15th anniversary of the Animated cartoon, but we doubt this was intentional.