Transformers Battlegrounds

Transformers Battlegrounds is a grid-based, turn-based tactics game developed by Coatsink and published by Outright Games, released in October 2020. It is set in the Cyberverse animated continuity, borrowing that show's bright, cel-shaded art style and its full voice cast. You play as a nameless human commander hoisted into the sky aboard Teletraan X, directing squads of Autobots across a four-act, twenty-mission campaign that takes the fight from Central City to Cybertron. Think of it as XCOM crossed with Mario + Rabbids, then stripped back further for a younger audience. The mechanical baseline is solid enough to keep a tactics newcomer engaged for an evening. Each Autobot, including Bumblebee, Arcee, Grimlock, Wheeljack, Windblade, and Optimus Prime, belongs to a class: Scout, Brawler, or Support. Action points govern movement and skill use each turn, and saving unspent points builds up an Energon gauge you can burn for a 50% or 100% power special attack, with the top-end ability triggering a transformation sequence. Attacks are guaranteed to hit, stripping out the RNG frustration that is standard in the genre. Environmental interaction adds a bit of texture: Optimus can literally drive into an enemy, transform, and throw them into an exploding car that chains into nearby targets. Megatron, meanwhile, refuses to step aside for his own troops, and will ricochet blasts off allied Decepticons to reach awkward angles. These are genuinely clever touches. The problem is they amount to a handful of tricks rather than a layered system. There are no overworld management loops, no base-building, no permadeath, and the upgrade path is limited to purchasing swappable abilities at Wheeljack's Lab and picking cosmetic skins. For anyone with a colour-coded spreadsheet habit, the ceiling arrives embarrassingly early. Mission objectives rotate through only three types: reach a location, survive waves, or eliminate all Decepticons. Enemy variety is thin until bosses show up, and even Shockwave, who spawns drones and stomps hard, can usually be pulled into a one-turn cluster with careful positioning. The hardest difficulty setting lands around where other tactics games place their Normal. There is no permadeath, so the existential terror that makes XCOM addictive simply never materialises. The campaign clocks in under ten hours, and there is no mod ecosystem, no procedural content, and no online play to extend the life of it. Post-campaign, an Arcade mode offers five additional modes, some of which support local co-op for two players: Capture the Flag, Energon Capture (defend deposit sites over ten turns), Last Stand (survival), Destruction (score-attack against Decepticon waves), and Decepticon Grudge Match, which finally lets you control the villains. These are short, simple, and fun in a couch co-op context. The Deluxe Edition also includes a Cube mode, a competitive local variant where players fight to hold a cube for as long as possible. None of it replaces the strategy depth the game never had to begin with, but it does pad the value for the target audience. Here is the thing: if you are a parent with a child who is curious about tactics games, or a younger player making their first attempt at the genre, Battlegrounds is a genuinely respectful on-ramp. The tutorial is clear, the HUD communicates everything cleanly, and the Cyberverse voice cast lends the whole thing real franchise authenticity. The Starscream scenes, in particular, are exactly as melodramatic as they should be. For the franchise-faithful adult who grew up with War for Cybertron, the experience will feel thin. One important note: the game was delisted from digital storefronts at the end of 2025 after Outright Games lost the Transformers licence, so availability on PC may be limited to keys already in circulation. Diego, Scout Team