A positively massive amount of speculation went into the leadup to the Overwatch 2 X Transformers collaboration, with such a short and sweet teaser telling people nothing more than the Transformers were indeed coming to the game.
This left fans and players alike to list all their dream characters, especially working to match them up to existing heroes within Overwatch to justify why such a concept would work – I know, because I was guilty of doing that myself. To quote myself from my own reveal post:
Optimus Prime Reinhardt? Megatron Ramattra? Starscream Pharah?
Well, two out of three aint bad – but what if I told you that Starscream Pharah was actually close to being a real thing?
In a piece shared on comicbook.com, Overwatch 2 Art Director Dion Rogers reveals that “there was not a shortage of ideas for this one.”
The concept for a Transformers collaboration dates all the way back to 2022, so there was plenty of time for ideas to develop and manifest. During this time, there were some obvious answers – such as Optimus Prime had to be Reinhardt, and Ramattra was a shoe-in for Megatron – but there were a few designs that reached a simmer but ultimately never hit the boil:
We did explore a few other heroes like Pharah as Starscream actually, and Lucio, we tried to make Soundwave work on him.
Both of these did the rounds on social media – as they just felt like such a softball entry to the skins. Pharah is the closest thing you can get to an actual humanoid JET in Overwatch, and Lucio’s sound-based weaponry felt like he and Soundwave were made to be buddies. Ultimately they didn’t materialise, but there was one other concept that came a little out of left field.
Aimee Dennett, Overwatch 2’s Associate Director of Product Management, explained that they had an idea to turn the spheroid hamster Wrecking Ball into an avatar for the living planet baddy Unicron:
(Unicron Wrecking Ball) was another one where we were like, Oh my gosh, such a great idea. And Transformers fans would love it, but it was sort of like, Are you going to do Bumblebee or are you going to do Unicron? It’s a balance, but it’s definitely something we take into consideration.
Ultimately it does make sense – in a world where you need to narrow down your choices, excluding an iconic Transformers presence like Bumblebee in favour of a rarely seen giga-bad guy like Unicron is a hard sell.
Scrapped Transformers Skins in #Overwatch2 🤖
— Overwatch Cavalry (@OWCavalry) July 11, 2024
🟥 Starscream - Pharah
🟦 Soundwave - Lúcio
🟧 Unicron - Wrecking Ball
Dion Rogers revealed in an article with @WWG that these skin concepts were explored but didn't make the final cut. pic.twitter.com/mD9vAMgtlF
I mean, obviously I would find myself putting forward the idea that “why not both” is a great option – but timing, resources and cost are all factors outside of my sad little bot-loving hands.
However within the same interview, there is a delightful little taste of hope – with a question asked about whether such a collaboration could see a second chapter, or sequel. Other collaboration events so far have quickly exhausted the iconic names within them, if only due to their nature of having a smaller cast (One Punch Man, I am looking at you) but the cast and history of the Transformers is wide and oh-so varied.
When asked about the potential for going back to the Transformers well, the response seemed optimistic. To quote Aimee Dennett:
We’re definitely never counting out doing something again where there’s so much idea and passion for it.
Dion Rogers even cemented himself further into my list of cool people, with a note that he isn’t wholly satisfied with the collaboration – if only because his favourite character wasn’t included.
Grimlock is actually one of my favorite Transformers and I wish we had a chance to include Dinobots in some way in this collab.
Hell yeah Dion, Dinobots are awesome. Let’s make that happen.
What about you, do you feel your favourite Transformer was not represented? What Overwatch character would best suit their presence? How the hell do you fit a fire-breathing dinosaur robot into Overwatch? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
Shoutouts to comicbook.com
