Transformers: EarthSpark - Expedition

As most Transformers fans are familiar with, the franchise goes through a refresh every three years in an effort to attract new fans. 2022 saw the launch of the most recent incarnation, Transformers: EarthSpark, on Paramount+, which follows the batch release format and completed its first Season last year, with a second on the way as of this writing. As someone who has been watching it in an effort to stay current with the TV side of the franchise as much as possible, I so far don’t find it to be on the same level as Prime or Animated in terms of story, but I think it has some great animation and interesting ideas, such as the concept of the Terrans and the Season 1 antagonist Mandroid, and I’m at least curious to see what the second season will bring (that said, the Season 1 ending was a little rough).

Last year, a video game based on the cartoon was also announced called Transformers: EarthSpark – Expedition (Expedition), which caught my interest due to being what seemed more like the sort of Transformers console gaming experience I been wanting since Fall of Cybertron, though I had already tempered my expectations due to it being a family-oriented game published by Outright Games. Said expectations were met just by glancing at gameplay on display at Comic-Con that year, but I still wanted to experience it myself, eventually getting it on sale for Black Friday after it came out later in the year. Despite a PS5 version having been announced, I could not find any evidence of its availability in the US, which led me to get the PS4 version with a free PS5 upgrade. While the game did meet my already tempered expectations, I feel like it could still have been better.

Following the events of EarthSpark Season 1, Team Bee report having encountered Mandroid’s Arachnobots, despite having defeated him. As they investigate these reports, Team Bee revisit the now dilapidated G.H.O.S.T. Base, discovering an audio file from mandroid where he gloats about his return and tells them where to find him. As Bumblebee follows this strange lead, he also discovers that Mandroid is digging for the three pieces of an ancient Cybertronian weapon known as the Energon Activator and tries to get to them before Mandroid can.

Somehow, Mandroid has returned.

For what it is, the story is thankfully consistent with that of the cartoon and manages not to contradict anything, even calling back to it a few times and opening with a recap of the Season 1 finale. The story having been written by Simon Furman, writer of numerous Transformers comics, likely helps with its consistency, though I was surprised to learn this on watching the credits since it lacked any of his trademark Furmanisms. That said, even with the recap, you might feel completely lost if you’re a newcomer who hasn’t watched the show, as it otherwise expects you to know of certain concepts such as the Terrans, the Malto family and G.H.O.S.T., let alone Mandroid. While the ending does hint that Mandroid might come back again, only time will tell whether the showrunners have any plans of their own left for him.

Fitting with the plot, Bumblebee is the only playable character, with gameplay spread across three different larger maps. Although the maps are nowhere near as big as many modern AAA games, they can still feel a bit empty and maze-like at times, which is thankfully mitigated by the ability to transform at will and fast travel to different areas after beating quests. The combat is pretty basic and repetitive, though using vehicle mode in the right way can open up new possibilities, as can your blaster when used on the right enemy. You can also unlock Special Attacks (L2) that refill as you deal damage, which can really help in a pinch, and you can use L1 to swap between any of your unlocked Special Attacks to suit your playstyle. There are also some pickups that are automatically assigned to a d-pad button (max. 10-15 each), including two types of health boosts along with attack and defense boosts, each of which provides a much-needed boost in the heat of battle. Any extra pick-ups that exceed your limit cannot be picked up until you use one, preventing any from going to waste, but it is worth mentioning that they cannot be used while in vehicle mode.

Aside from enemy encounters, each map is also populated by various quests. Completing them increases your influence on the area with a minimum required to advance to each of Mandroid’s Lairs. Epic Camps provide the largest boosts to this, with other quests providing a small boost towards 100% completion. Scrap can be collected by defeating enemies or breaking crates, though completing side quests given to you by Terrans across each map also provides Scrap as well as additional resources to use at G.H.O.S.T. Base. You can also return to G.H.O.S.T. Base at any time in the pause menu, where you can use your collected resources for advancing skill trees, unlocking cosmetics and purchasing pick-ups outright. There are also two additional collectibles in the form of Cards and Glyphs, the latter of which can be deciphered into messages at G.H.O.S.T. Base when collected, many of which are blocked off until you obtain certain abilities later in the game upon completing Mandroid’s Lairs. Upon completing the story, I decided to go back and collect all nine Glyphs just to see what messages they would spell out, only to feel some disappointment when they turned out to be famous Transformers quotes, as I viewed it as a missed opportunity to plant some seeds for EarthSpark Season 2.

While Expedition plays decently, the gravity is a little floaty, making the combat and other minor aspects feel slower than they probably should, with combat made frustrating at times by Bumblebee’s lack of iFrames. Bumblebee also has a rather lengthy animation if he falls from a great-enough height, which can be rather detrimental if enemies happen to be in the area, however I figured out that it’s possible to bypass this animation completely by transforming to vehicle mode before hitting the ground, significantly increasing recovery time. It’s also entirely possible to get stuck in the environment at times, which in one area got so bad that I had to retreat to G.H.O.S.T. Base and start it over. This also came up once during a boss fight, which I somehow managed to barely survive and wiggle my way out of in time. The camera is pretty good, but it can also sort of bug out if it hits an environmental object at the wrong angle.

 

One thing Expedition gets credit for is managing to faithfully replicate the visual style of EarthSpark, with menus and other visual elements fitting in with said art style. Although paced a little slowly, I also can’t deny that the opening comic book-style sequence is well-drawn. That said, the game itself has some rather iffy draw distance, especially with smaller objects such as grass and even some larger objects such as Mandroid’s large machinery at the Epic Camps. On the smaller side, some objects also have odd geometries, including a structure in the third map that has an area with no hitbox. Wooden structures in the first map have invisible barriers for Bumblebee to stand on, but they can become visible at the right angles, almost appearing like panes of glass. Additionally, water physics are non-existent for vehicle mode in spite of their presence for robot mode, plus Brawler enemies oddly spawn in a way that makes them look like they got knocked over.

 

And now for a compilation.
Alex Malto's hologram is floating slightly above the ground.

The invisible box is visible and looks like a pane of glass.

Something ain't right about this...

Also worth mentioning is that you can toggle Bumblebee’s headlights by clicking L3, which actually comes in very handy in darker areas. This is probably a bit more nitpicky, but I noticed that turning the headlights on is not reflected in the headlights on Bumblebee’s character model, which I thought would have been a very clever attention to detail.

 

One nice detail, however, is that Bumblebee can park in this spot.

Although the game has some decent sound design, even including the iconic transformation noise, the voice acting has to be one of the weakest aspects of the game. Hiring sound-alikes in place of the original voice actors isn’t new, but despite being professionally cast, even including returning voices from previous Transformers projects, the voice cast in this game sounds nothing like the ones in the cartoon, sounding oddly robotic or phoned in, like they’re just reading the script. Additionally, there seemed to have been a typo in the script that was reflected in the subs, which was surprisingly read off anyway, along with an instance of the audio not matching the subs, leading to a disconnect in the conversation it occurred in if going only by the audio. On the flip side, the music is at least somewhat memorable, if only due to its repetitive nature and usage.

 

Transformers: EarthSpark – Expedition is not the worst Transformers game ever made, but some noticeable drawbacks make it fall short of some of the better ones (not that I expected this game to be of that caliber in the first place). Still, it’s a passable game for existing Transformers fans, particularly those within the target demographic, but its appeal is limited even further by requiring the player to already be a fan of Transformers: EarthSpark (at least through Season 1) to fully understand the plot.