Troubled Transformers Game Finally Canceled Amid Cuts At Studio Behind Gears Tactics

Screenshot: Splash Damage

Transformers: Reactivate was first teased back at The Game Awards 2022, in a short 60-second trailer set to Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.” Just a little over two years later, developers Splash Damage announced the online multiplayer game based on the hit sci-fi action figures is not wanted after all, at least not by toy maker Hasbro.

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Suggested Reading“Today, we have some very difficult news to share,” reads a statement (via VGC) from the studio best known for multiplayer games like Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Brink, as well as the more recent Gears of War spin-off Gears Tactics. “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.”

Splash Damage did not specify the total number of layoffs or the reason for the cancellation. Transformers: Reactivate was supposed to have a closed beta shortly after its original announcement, but 2023 and 2024 both passed without any new updates on the status of the live-service project. Eugene Evans, Hasbro’s senior VP of digital strategy and licensing, told Game File last year that Transformers: Reactivate would be a “milestone for Transformers in the next year or two” that nailed the feeling of playing as a massive, bipedal robot.

Transformers: Reactivate seemed like it would be the first new big-budget game featuring the robots since PlatinumGames’ 2015 Transformers: Devastation, published before Activision’s license deal with Hasbro expired. Last year saw the release of the racing roguelite Transformers: Galactic Trials to no real fanfare, and the better games in the franchise have mostly been pulled from storefronts.

Late last year, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks was bullish on the company’s investment in video games, referencing unannounced Dungeons & Dragons and G.I Joe projects following the success of 2023’s Baldur’s Gate III. The executive told Bloomberg the company was pouring $100 to $150 million a year into development of various projects, with plans for at least one to two releases per year by 2026. It’s a shame that Transformers: Reactivate won’t be among them.

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