Overwatch 2 Reveals Alternate Transformers Characters, Secrets of New Collab (Exclusive)

Overwatch 2's art team reveals secrets of the new Transformers collab, including alternate characters

By Spencer Perry - July 11, 2024 05:13 pm EDT

This week saw Blizzard's Overwatch 2 deliver their latest collaboration effort, working with Hasbro to bring Transformers to life in the world of Overwatch 2. The collab not only includes four skins featuring four Overwatch 2 Heroes as Transformers characters, including Reinhardt at Optimus Prime, Bastion as Bumblebee, Illari as Arcee, and Ramattra as Megatron; plus Transformers themed voicelines, highlight intros, and player icons that allow fans to show off their Transformers fandom within the game. Following the release of the Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab, ComicBook spoke with two members of the Overwatch 2 team to learn more about the characters that are available, and the ones that didn't make the cut.

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Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab
- Blizzard)

Overwatch 2 x Transformers Origins

Blizzard's collaboration with Hasbro to bring this Transformers collab to life began way back in 2022, and according to Aimee Dennett, Overwatch 2's Associate Director of Product Management, has "been a long time coming." The length of time it took to get this one right also resulted in a stars aligning moment as the Transformers collab arrived during season 11, wherein the game's battlepass is themed to Tokusatsu style characters.

Naturally, like with the Overwatch 2 x Cowboy Bebop collab, deciding which characters would make the cut for Overwatch 2 x Transformers was incredibly easy, but as Overwatch 2 Art Director Dion Rogers revealed, "there was not a shortage of ideas for this one."

"Pretty much right away Optimus Prime had to be Reinhardt," Rogers adds. "Our concept team cranked out actually quite a few ideas for multiple characters. Reinhardt was always Optimus and Ramattra just felt like that was our Megatron no matter what. But we did explore a few other heroes like Pharah as Starscream actually, and Lucio, we tried to make Soundwave work on him. There's some favorites on the team that we landed on. The concept team did a really good job of just exploring a bunch of ideas."

Another Overwatch 2 hero that was considered for the Transformers collab is Wrecking Ball, who would have been paired with Unicron, the planet-sized Transformer. In the end however, with only a select few slots available, it came down to what characters are fans going to expect to see.

"(Unicron Wrecking Ball) was another one where we were like, Oh my gosh, such a great idea," Dennett said. "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."

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Reinhardt as Optimus Prime in the Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab
- Blizzard)

Overwatch 2 x Transformers: Reinhardt as Optimus Prime

Players and fans have flocked to the Reinhardt/Optimus Prime skin since it was first revealed, loving not only the design but the additional voice changer that makes him sound similar to the Transformers character. One question many had however was why he isn't sporting Optimus Prime's signature energon-axe rather than his hammer, especially since some Reinhardt skins swap out his hammer for an axe anyway.

"We need to keep some elements that remind the player of who the character is within the Overwatch universe," Rogers said in response to this. "So his iconic hammer is one of those things that you recognize that silhouette whenever he's running around in gameplay. So part of the reason is to maintain Reinhardt while pushing the boundary of what his basic cosplay of this hero is."

The team also confirmed that the idea was at least floated that Optimus Prime Reinhardt would transform into a truck when he initiates his charge ability. It didn't make it far though.

"I remember it being mentioned, and I think our tech artists would've murdered us if we had gone down that route," Dennett said. "You'll notice on the play of the game intro though, our animators did a really good job of having fun with the angles. So it does look like a semi is come towards you, but I mean, even with Bastion who physically transforms, it's still really challenging to get those elements just right. It actually gave us a ton of respect for the actual Transformers toys. There's just so much engineering that goes into it to make it look great, both in the non transformed state and then into the vehicle state. And man, we definitely thought about it, but it was a little bit too (much)."

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Bastion as Bumblebee in the Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab
- Blizzard)

Overwatch 2 x Transformers: Bastion as Bumblebee

Overwatch 2 hero Bastion turning into Bumblebee not only make sense from the larger perspective (neither character speaks) but also from the transforming perspective. With this new Bumblebee skin, Bastion's sentry form takes on the appearance of a little car driving around, an element that Aimee Dennett called "a huge opportunity." That element of the Bastion skin may open things up for the team moving forward to try alternate designs with future Bastion skins.

"We're always trying a lot of ideas for Bastion," Rogers said. "He's a hard character. We really made a pretty complex model to adjust, but he's super fun when we find an idea like this, but it definitely did unlock more things for him. So you never know."

Another key details of the Bastion Bumblebee skin that players may have noticed is the license plate on the skin, whith Rogers confirmed to us it's supposed to be the onomatopoeia for the Transformers' signature "transforming sound."

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Illari as Arcee in the Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab
- Blizzard)

Overwatch 2 x Transformers: Illari as Arcee

The biggest surprise for some Overwatch 2 players was that Illari would become Arcee, not only because Illari hasn't gotten a lot of skins as of late. That was one reason that Illari was put in the spotlight too,

"We did want to get a new skin for Illari, so we tried a couple ideas with her," Rogers said. "Arcee is actually one of my favorite characters in the Transformer universe. When we first started down this path, we started to do some research. So I rewatched a movie again... but Arcee obviously stood out as a female Transformer, so her body and things, it just fit Illari pretty well when it came to doing the skin. And I love the way Illari's weapon transforms. So it also hearkens back a little bit to the transforming that we can't fully transform the character, but we can still hint at the ability. So that's why we landed on it for Illari."

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Ramattra as Megatron in the Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab
- Blizzard)

Overwatch 2 x Transformers: Ramattra as Megatron

As easy as it was to decide Reinhardt should be Optimus Prime for the Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab, it was just as a easy to land on Ramattra as Megatron.

"When we first started searching for the right characters, he's another one that stood out as he could make up potentially a really great Megatron," Rogers added. "He also transforms, so we wanted to pick a few characters that could simulate a little bit of what a Transformer would do in their universe. So this what made Ramattra a good pick for this, and you can see in his ultimate mode, he tries to emulate some of the guns or the state that Megatron would be in when he transforms as well. He's also ultimately our villain in the game, so it makes a good choice for Megatron."

Overwatch 2 x Transformers Collab: No Free Skin

Overwatch 2 fans were quick to note that unlike the collab with Le Sserafim, Cowboy Bebop, and One Punch Man, there was no free skin to be found in the Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab. When asked about this, Dennet replied:

"We felt that because Transformers has such an iconic Autobots versus Decepticons that that's maybe a fun way to play through that, and this one was less about like, 'Oh, let's give away a free skin, and it was more like how can we let players show their fandom and their affinity towards the property.' Maybe someone who loves Decepticons, they're going to grind harder and really want to get that Decepticon player icon, that name card, that title. So we felt that we really wanted to play with the theme of the property on this."

Overwatch 2 x Transformers: Hidden Details

As long as it takes to get skins for their collabs just right, there's plenty of details that were quickly found, and some that may not have been noticed by regular players. Hardcore Transformers fans may have noticed that the highlight intros for both Ramattra and Reinhardt are reminiscent of key frames from Transformers: The Movie, emulating a specific pose that both Megatron and Optimus Prime had in the big battle from that movie. Another key element of that highlight intro is that players will notice the explosion behind Reinhardt only occurs if they have the Optimus Prime skin enabled, it won't appear if any other skin is equipped.

Overwatch 2 x Transformers Could Return for More

Unlike previous collaborations that Overwatch 2 has carried out, the Transformers event feels like one that could be just the first of many. As Dion Rogers told us before the team had a lot of ideas about what could be done, even generating ideas for other Overwatch 2 heroes as Transformers characters. When we asked if the potential for another collab was in the cards, they seemed optimistic about it.

"We're definitely never counting out doing something again where there's so much idea and passion for it," Aimee Dennett said. "Like Dion said that the issue was much less like, 'oh man, who do we do' and is more like, 'okay, we can't do all of these.'"

Fans keeping their fingers crossed for further Overwatch 2 x Transformers characters should know they're not alone either, as Dion Rogers offered us one last element he toyed with that he wished could have made the cut.

"Grimlock is actually one of my favorite Transformers and I wish we had a chance to include Dinobots in some way in this collab."

Like Optimus Prime said, "The future is built on dreams."

Overwatch 2 x Transformers collab is available now through July 23rd.