Popular free-to-play naval warfare MMO World of Warships has Transformers in it now. Not robots that transform into warships, mind you, but rather warships piloted by Autobots Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and the Decepticons Megatron and Rumble. Weird.
There are Transformers that change from robots to actual warships. Tidal Wave from Transformers Armada immediately comes to mind. Generation One triple changer Broadside could turn into an aircraft carrier. But they aren’t the ones Hasbro and Wargaming decided on when selecting which Transformers would become special in-game skins for existing boats, complete with robotic commanders. They went for more popular cameos, for the most part.
Optimus Prime is a pretty obvious choice. He’s a military leader, after all. Who better to stand on the deck of a battleship and randomly turn into a truck? Does being a truck help? I don’t know.
Megatron, in his current incarnation, transforms into a tank. A tank commanding a warship? How can this be?
That takes care of the two faction leaders. Who else we got? Bumblebee? He makes sense. He’s the most popular Autobot next to Optimus, and he even had his own movie, which somehow did not suck. Bumblebee deserves a nice boat.
Finally, we have Rumble. One of Soundwave’s cassette minions. They don’t show him transform in the announcement trailer, because that would be stupid. Out of all the Decepticons Hasbro and Wargaming could have chosen for this crossover, they went with one of Soundwave’s tapes. Rumble is commanding a boat. At least it wasn’t Laserbeak.
The Transformers ship skins and commanders will start showing up in World of Warships in a major update planned for release in September. They are exactly what meets the eye.