Beast Wars battle back in new Netflix trailer for Transformers: War for Cybertron: Kingdom

Netflix’s animated Transformers series is bringing Beast Wars back to the mix in a big way in the just-released trailer for Transformers: War for Cybertron: Kingdom, the third and final chapter in the streamer’s sweeping, nostalgia-propelled bot-versus-bot trilogy.

The three-feature series kicked off last summer with Transformers: War for Cybertron: Siege, followed by its Earthrise successor in December. The events leading up to Kingdom have found the Autobots fighting on two fronts to save Cybertron, in the wake of a deadly civil war between the Autobots and the Decepticons.

Showrunner F.J. DeSanto has long teased that he and the creative forces at Rooster Teeth, Hasbro, and Netflix have known how the entire trilogy would play out from the very start, so it’s no surprise to finally see classic characters from the Beast Wars series make their long-awaited appearance…but it’s pretty cool all the same.

Check it out:

Per Netflix’s official synopsis, the conflict between Optimus Prime and Megatron is heading to an epic finish as Kingdom brings a high-impact ending to the trilogy.

“Having crash-landed on Earth, the Autobots and Decepticons are confronted by two rival Cybertronian factions from a future that their conflict has inadvertently created, as the heroes and villains of the classic Beast Wars: Transformers series make their War for Cybertron debut,” the streamer teases.

“Now the Autobots must team up with the Maximals to confront the Decepticons, who have joined forces with the Predacons, in the race to find the missing AllSpark. However, the Predacons are in control of the Golden Disk, a mysterious artifact which has a personal connection to Megatron and gives him an untold advantage over his enemy, Optimus Prime. Which faction will triumph in the final battle that will decide the fate of Cybertron’s future?”

DeSanto told SYFY WIRE last year that War for Cybertron unleashes the Transformers from their recent big-screen CG trappings for an animated style (and an alternate story) that sets no limits on where the action can go — a freedom the first two chapters definitely have already made use of. 

“Cybertron is a different planet. It doesn't have to have the physics of Earth,” he said. “…We spent a lot of time developing the trilogy as a whole, so what I'm excited about is people trying to figure out how we get to Kingdom. Siege to Earthrise to Kingdom: it's three chapters of a trilogy, but they're distinctly different even though they tell one large story.”

Get set for Netflix to share the story’s galactic end — Beast Wars and all — when Transformers: War for Cybertron: Kingdom makes its debut on July 29.