A Hasbro spokesperson has revealed that they would love to bring back old Transformers Games, but it seems that Activision has lost them and therefore the games cannot be brought back until they're found again.
From 2006 to 2017, Activision held the Transformers licence to create games out of the famous IP. Once the deal ran out, multiple games got pulled from existence and taken off Steam and other digital marketplaces, leaving some fans disappointed that they couldn't get these games back.
Recently, at the San Diego Comicon, a Hasbro spokesperson revealed some interesting facts about the deal and how Hasbro would love to bring back older titles, along with their brand-new game that is set to release in 2024.
Activision Lost Old Transformers Games According To Hasbro Spokesperson
Throughout the 10-year partnership between Hasbro and Activision, multiple Transformers games were created. Sure, these weren't AAA blockbusters, but they were fun and unique games, bringing a new twist to the IP. When their partnership ended, the games were taken offline though.
Now, with a new Transformers game in the works by Splash Damage, Hasbro has decided to create replicas of the Transformers from the games and sell them as Gamer Edition toys.
In a Q&A at San Diego Comicon, a Hasbor spokesperson revealed that while they would love to bring back older Transformers titles, it's currently not possible, due to the games literally being lost. He explained that, "Activision's not sure what hard drives [the games] are on in their building."
When a company eats a company that eats a company things get lost, and that’s very frustrating. Hope is that now that the deal is moving forward with Microsoft and Xbox that they’ll go through all of the archives and every hard drive to find it all, because it’s an easy Game Pass add. We want those games back up for people to have a chance to play.
When the company was working on the Gamer Edition Transformers toys, they had to boot up older versions of the games they still had to find colored 3D models of the Transformers.
The toy makers even had to rip one of the games, War of Cybertron, completely so they could find the assets they needed.
For WFC, we had to rip it ourselves, because they could not find it – they kept sending concept art instead, which we didn’t want, we need the [3D model]. So we booted up an old computer and ripped them all out from there. Which was a learning experience and a long weekend, because we just wanted to get it right, so that’s why we did it like that.
It's interesting to learn this, since you'd expect a multi-billion company like Activision to not just lose things on random hard drives somewhere, right? This isn't my work desk where I just shove papers under papers...
Hopefully the older Transformers games pop up so they could be added to the Xbox Game Pass someday so everyone can experience the joys of Transformers.