This info has been out there for quite a while now but it seems to have really flown under the radar. It's been mentioned briefly in other threads but I thought it made sense that it should have it's own.

Certain Affinity is an Austin-based developer known primarily for it's contributions to the multiplayer components for various Halo and Call of Duty games as well as the 2016 Doom reboot. The studio is currently working on their own original IP "Last Expedition", a 4 player co-op FPS with survival elements.

In 2017, Leyou (current holder of the Transformers license) invested $10 million in Certain Affinity to develop a Transformers game. It is being developed as a third person shooter (as mentioned in the agreement here).

This will be the first (presumably) competitive multiplayer Transformers title (outside of China) since Fall of Cybertron in 2012. Based on what little info there is, it sounds as though it's a project in the vein of Overwatch, Destiny, Fortnite etc.

It's been in development for a little over a year.

Leyou Technologies Annual Report 2017

"Within the year, the Company obtained the licenses of Transformers and Civilization from Hasbro Inc. and Hasbro International Inc. (collectively, “Hasbro”) and Take Two International GmbH (“Take Two”) respectively for the development of new video game products. The Group believes that such license grants reflect the recognition of the Group’s game development and publishing capability from notable IP owners. As popular IP helps developers create market appealing titles, when combined with the state-of-the-art development and publishing capability of the Group, the prospects of new titles released by the Group becoming an instant hit is further enhanced."

"The Group commenced the development of multiple new titles, including Transformers Online and Civilization Online in 2017. The new titles under development in 2017, coupled with a series of new products currently in planning stages, form a strong product pipeline and lay a solid foundation for the Group’s potential exponential growth over the next few years."

"The Group has established a new strong product pipeline including:

– Transformers Online, an online game being developed by Certain Affinity with the license granted by Hasbro"

Certain Affinity is ready for the limelight with games as a service model

"...the studio is also developing an original Transformers title. It’s the largest project at Certain Affinity right now, and the studio’s biggest to date. It’s still very much under wraps, however, locked up in a vault protected by burly Autobots."

"...both the Transformers game and Last Expedition have been designed from the ground up to be games as a service, to be games that become people’s hobbies that they play day in and day out, for months and years, and that we’re continuously improving and enhancing.”

 

So is this a console AND mobile title?

 

On the one hand, this is interesting.

On the other, I don't want another mobile money sink, I want a proper game.

 

It's an online third person shooter coming to PC and consoles.

The publisher's focus is on free-to-play console and PC gaming. They recently set up a studio to work on an online Middle Earth game for console and PC and a while back they acquired Digital Extreme, the developers of Warframe.

If you have grievances with the free-to-play model, the CEO sounds like an intelligent guy who seems to understand how to do free-to-play right and displays a genuine enthusiasm for wanting to make high quality games with the model. There's a great interview with him here (In which he also confirms Transformers Online as a console / PC title).

There's no mention of mobile above, not sure where you're getting that from?

 

Free-to-Play? Why not just slap FREEMIUM on the damn thing because that pretty much guarantees microtransactions and if there's one thing that does not bode well, it's microtransactions. I fully understand the need for them, but without prior knowledge of how this company specifically handles them (DE is the only company that seems to understand how to to that as far as I can tell and DE is not on this project), that already is a strike against this for me.

Plus, it's trying to shove Transformers into a bloated hero/class based shooter market to cut a piece of the pie enjoyed mainly by Overwatch and Fortnite, with some PUBG thrown in. That right there is a turn off for me - what happened to good single player games? Why must everything nickel-and-dime players with emphasis on multiplayer?

I'm not asking for Doom 2016 here but a quality single player Transformers game is possible - Devestation proved as much. But this smells too damn much like a soulless cash grab.

 

In fairness, three excellent single player Transformers games were released this decade and all three sold relatively poorly, especially Devastation. It's not as though there had been a lack of them.

Outside of Marvel and Star Wars, licensed games are having a rough time of it. It'll probably be a while before we see another high-quality single player focused Transformers title. FOC was a great game with spectacular marketing and it still underperformed. The Transformers brand just can't seem to catch a break in the console gaming sector despite some valiant efforts.

I feel for those who are unenthused by multiplayer games. I'm not a huge multiplayer person myself but a Transformers game in the vein of Overwatch (or something thereabouts) does make me a bit giddy. I do disagree in that regard, I can't think of a franchise that's more to suited to a team-based, hero-style shooter than Transformers is, although that's subjective. As long as it's done well and with care.

On the subject of free-to-play, this interview with Leyou's CEO does inspire confidence.

"Asian users can accept free-to-play game design more easily than Western users. That doesn’t necessarily mean Asian users like real pay-to-win. Nobody really likes that or the idea that if you don’t pay, you just stand still. We’ve designed our games the right way."

"We're trying to build a virtual community in our games. The whales, the people who have less time and more money to spend in the game, they can work together and build a virtual group with people who have more time and less money. We design the game mechanics, so they need each other."

"For free-to-play users, they’re contributing a lot to the virtual society — their efforts, their time, their skills. It’s fair for them to earn something instead of paying something."

"Our firm belief is that if you design a game in the right way, it’ll work for everyone."

"A virtual society still needs the freedom for everyone to choose their own way of living in it — no entrance fees, no requirements to pay."

"You can’t go far on a pay-to-win philosophy. We need to let the world know that we’re doing something different."

Plus, an extra nugget of hope, Leyou owns DE and worked with them on the free-to-play elements of Warframe.

 

Yeah, no thanks. The moment a company starts spouting "games as a service", you know it'll be bad. These "live services" never work. They're inherently designed to be a shitty, barely enjoyable experience that milks money out of the players.

And really, nobody is above making these sort of games. People praise Nintendo, for example, but they do it too (Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp; Fire Emblem Heroes). No company seems to be against doing this, and no property appears to be safe from being swallowed whole by corporate greed.

Free-to-play almost never works. Even Warframe has its issues in that regard. Free-to-play never inspires confidence to me. Also, Overwatch itself is not free-to-play.

And as for the previous games not selling well, it's true, but the marketing was never particularly good for them (and look at the toys, especially for Fall of Cybertron - they're dire). Besides, it's not like the games were financial failures. Well, maybe some of the shitty movie games aside (and I mean the shitty ones, because some of them were actually decent).

 

That isn't saying much given 90% of Warframe is free and the only things that can only be obtained with real money currency are cosmetics and usually storage slots for frames and weapons.

Yeah, I liked pocket camp well enough...until they introduced the fortune cookies which are litterally single item lootboxes.

Warframe works because you can do single player. Games like overwatch and fort nite are just multiplayer grindfests for cosmetic loot you can also buy...to say nothing of the Battlefront 2 controversy or Fallout 76.

Not to mention I learned this company was responsible for Doom 2016 multiplayer...the worst part of that game. ID Software is developing multiplayer in-house for Eternal.

 

I was questioning wether or not it’s mobile aswell because of the Fortnite comparison, and it appears that Kabam no longer holds the Transformers license.

 

I was questioning wether or not it’s mobile aswell because of the Fortnite comparison, and it appears that Kabam no longer holds the Transformers license.

 

So just to put this into perspective, Certain Affinity is developing a new Transformers console game? Since this has been in development for more than a year, do you suppose we could be receiving some teasers/announcements anytime soon?

 

sweet i hope they reveal something at toy fair

 

wtf are you rambling on?

 

Here’s a brief update:

“Certain Affinity is the largest independent game development studio in Austin, Texas. Now, the company is opening up a second studio in a separate country altogether. Today, Certain Affinity announced that it will be branching out to Toronto, Ontario in Canada, with the studio set to employee up to 60 developers in 2019.“

“The company’s Toronto office will work together with its Austin branch to continue work on two new games: a science-fiction co-op first-person shooter and survival title called Last Expedition and an upcoming Transformers title. A 2017 feature story on Last Expedition from Polygon reveals the game places four "Firefly-style misfits" onto an alien surface where they are unprepared for long-term survival. Players will have to build or collect items like weapons and tools to stay alive, with everything from plant and animal life to planetary weather posing a threat.”

The good news is that the game is still quietly under development. Hopefully we’ll hear more soon!  

 

Figures. Our first Transformers console game in 4 years or so, and it’s going to be purely online. Fuck.

 

Looks cool. Any hopes for any console games?

 

It’s most likely to be a console game if anything. Leyou (the publisher of this upcoming product) is a company that focuses solely on console and PC gaming. This certainly isn’t a mobile game.

 

Still miss transformers universe

hope at least in this game you can play Decepticons again..
 

 

Interesting. I wonder if it’s just gonna be a ton of characters or if we’re gonna get custom bots like in WFC.

 

YESSSSSS!