Bah weep granna weep ninni bong! Botcon 2012 was this past weekend in Dallas, Texas and Hasbro, IDW, Jagex, Activision, and many more dumped a whole truckload of Transformers news on the fandom. For the interest of time’s sake, we chose to roundup the weekend’s news and photos in one comprehensive post, so you could get up to speed all in one place. So, without further ado, let’s dive in! Hit the jump to see what the future of Transformers is going to be!
On the toyline front, Hasbro announced several exciting things for the coming year, including the continuation of the popular Transformers Prime line. Characters Hasbro has confirmed to appear in the line include:
- Wave 4 Revealers Dead End, Airachnid, and Shadow Strike Bumblebee
- Revealer Class Sergeant Kup
- Revealer Class Rumble
- Wave 3 Voyager Thundertron (a pirate captain?!)
- Cyberverse Figures incoming: Wheeljack, Ultra Magnus, Flame War, Quick Blade Bumblebee, Nightwatch Optimus Prime, and Bumblebee Battle Suit
- Cyberverse Airachnid coming in 2013
Hasbro is also continuing the Botshot line with new releases:
- Ironhide
- Powerglide
- Jazz
- Chase Megatron
- Topspin
- Jetfire
- Lockdown
- Thundercracker
- Leadfoot
- Ironhide launcher – black, G1 face, giant saws on the side
- Shockwave (!)
- Wave 2 three pack – Skyquake, Jetfire, and Powerglide
- Wave 2 three pack – Brawl, Shockwave, and clear Ironhide
- player vs. player online game coming to bot-shots.com next month
Exciting news on the Masterpiece front:
- MP-10 Optimus Prime will be released stateside WITH trailer as a Toys R Us Exclusive. Also includes Spike, Roller, and Prime’s energon axe
Fall of Cybertron:
- Line will release in Spring 2013
- Kickback
- Starscream
- Sideswipe
- weapons with figures based on game weapons
- Ultra Magnus Optimus Prime repaint
- Firefight (Shockwave repaint)
- Voyager class Soundwave with Laserbeak data disc! Figure holds three discs, plunger in the back ejects them and they transform!
- Soundblaster redeco for Soundwave
- Rumble (blue) and Ravage data discs at the Legends price point
- Frenzy (red) and Ratbat data discs at the Legends price point
San Diego Comic Com has always seen some great items from Hasbro, and this year will be no different. Get ready to open your wallets!
- Rust in Peace Transformers Prime (first edition) Cliffjumper – comes with a dark energon snap on chest piece and energon marks. Packaged in a hand painted bust of Cliffjumper’s head with dark energon purple colored plastic. Box figure comes in looks like Cliffy’s torso, so the head can be put on top to make a diorama. This is going to be a super cool piece.
- Fall of Cybertron Bruticus (game color edition) Figure will be packaged in a book format. Very beautiful job on the packaging, figures will appear more like they are in the game. Both of these sets will most likely be extremely hard to find, not to mention Bruticus will be released almost a year before mass retail. Good luck!
Moving on, Fun Publications, the group that holds the Botcon Conventions, has announced the start of a subscription toy service to launch sometime in the near future. Figures will be exclusive to the club, will reuse old molds, sometimes have new heads, and will be delivered throughout the year to fans who wish to pay for the service. Included in the lineup:
- Reveal the Shield Scourge (RTS G2 Prime recolor)
- Animated Jackpot (Animated Jazz recolor)
- Transformers Prime Slipstream (Transformers Prime first edition Starscream recolor with new head)
- Generations/Universe Breakdown (Universe Sideswipe recolor with new head)
- Circuit (Movie Axor recolor)
- Ultra Mammoth (Beast Wars Neo Big Convoy recolor in gray)
- Club Exclusive figure for next year is Depth Charge from the movie Terradive mold
Moving to video games, Activision and Jagex had lots of news relating to the upcoming Transformers Prime, Fall of Cybertron, and Transformers Universe MMO games. First, Transformers Prime:
- Holiday release
- Brawler style gameplay
- all voice actors on board, minus Tony Todd (no Dreadwing 🙁 )
- Largely based on season 1, with some season 2
- Tank and helicopter Vehicons shown
New Fall of Cybertron news:
- 18 upgradable weapons
- Jazz and Cliffjumper have “buddy” vibe. They want to feature Cliffjumper because of his role in Prime.
- Team looked to old Marvel comics to get backstory of Shockwave and Dinobots
- toys have been a joint collaboration designed in step with game models
- Multiplayer customization – ability to change head, torso, upper/lower arms and legs, wings, etc. All customizable!
- Transformation will will natural no matter what parts you choose.
And lastly, Transformers Universe MMO:
- free to play on any browser with Java, should look like a console game
- based on Prime continuity, but separate from show
- third person POV
- multiple character classes, with 5 available at launch
- no beast modes or flight modes at launch, but hope to add later
- character appears will change as character upgrades
- humans are in, but as part of the scenery
- hope to have a beta by the end of the year
That’s it, for the most part. Check into the Podcast episode #6 this week to hear the Geeks talk all about Botcon and lots of other nerdtacular news.
To keep up with the latest post Botcon happenings, stay here with us or check out our friends at TFW2005, Allspark, or Seibertron.
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