Hasbro has partnered with Niantic to make the real-world AR mobile game – Transformers: Heavy Metal. The AR game will be a location-based game in line with Niantic’s Pokémon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and Ingress mobile games.

Very Very Spaceship is driving the development of the game, and Tomy is Niantic’s publishing partner in Japan. Transformers: Heavy Metal will bring Bumblebee and Optimus Prime to life in the real world via Niantic’s Lightship platform.

In the title, gamers will accompany the Guardian Network, a group of people who have partnered with the Autobots to fight against the Decepticons. As a Guardian, gamers will reveal hidden regions across planet earth to find resources and battle Decepticons.

Transformers: Heavy Metal will launch sooner in select markets, while a planned worldwide launch is scheduled for later this year. The game is using the Lightship platform, which is Niantic’s planet-scale augmented reality platform that allows real-time 3D mapping, AR, and multi-player social experiences. Developers, with the help of Niantic Lightship ARDK, can build their augmented reality environment using tools that leverage environmental context, location, and shared multi-player views.

“Transformers is a global, beloved entertainment franchise that’s fun, a bit irreverent, and has a message that lines up with Niantic’s values, that of ‘Save the Earth, Save Humanity.’ We saw an opportunity to bring the best of what we do with geolocation gaming and AR to a game that’s different than what we’ve done before. Transformers: Heavy Metal adds diversity to our slate, as it’s a high-action mobile game, but it will also be familiar to players given that exploring the world and battling back the Decepticon invasion is one of the key pillars of the game.” – Phil Hong, Executive Producer, Niantic, in an email reply to VentureBeat.

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