Developed by Coatsink and published by Outright Games Ltd., Transformers: Battlegrounds was either going to be a success or an absolute waste of time. If you’re not familiar with Outright Games, they are a family-friendly gaming company. Not all of their games feel like a complete waste of time, so I was hopefully optimistic about Transformers: Battlegrounds. Sadly, this game fails on every major front for me. The combat is underdeveloped, the voice lines are cringy, and I could feel the lack of effort put into most of the game I had played.
Low Effort
Everything about Transformers: BattleGrounds, aside from the art style, screams low effort and underdeveloped.
The production value appears to be extremely low, and although I recognize the games’ target audience is children, come on.
The combat system is inspired by XCOM but has none of the polish: The system is boring to play and provides little to no gameplay value. Instead of this combat system, Battlegrounds could have benefited from being a hack and slash game.
The art style is fine.
Microtransactions
The first thing to turn me off about this game was the number of microtransactions I could see from the moment I started the game. Most of them are skins, but it is never a good sign to me when the first thing I see for a new game is a ton of additions that frankly don’t make sense.
Eh
I find this game to be a massive disappointment in every way. The combat is stale, and all of the best parts of XCOM combat have been removed. Although the art style is fine, a lot of the game is static, and the environments are bland.
The setup for a human having to direct the transformers was weird and frankly lazy. However, I understand the target audience for the game is children. More effort could have been put in all around.
