Niantic, the team behind the wildly popular AR game Pokémon GO, has teamed up with Hasbro and TOMY to develop a new augmented reality title based on the Transformers franchise.

Titled ‘Transformers: Heavy Metal’, the new game will see players battle with characters from the Transformers series in real world settings using the game’s AR features. Development on the title is being led by the Seattle-based studio Very Very Spaceship, using Niantic’s Lightship platform.

Transformers: Heavy Metal is scheduled to be released worldwide later this year.

“Transformers is the perfect franchise for AR. Battling and interacting with giant robots in the real world is an amazing experience,” said John Hanke, CEO of Niantic. “We want to live up to the high expectations of Transformers fans around the world and bring them a game unlike anything they’ve played before.”

In a statement issued on the Niantic website this week, executive producer, Phil Hong said: “In thinking about franchises that would be incredible to bring to life in AR, Transformers was a no-brainer.

“This will be a Transformers game unlike any other, an AR game where you’ll get to team up with the likes of Bumblebee and the Autobots in the real world, powered by the Niantic Lightship platform.

“We’ve been working super hard on this with Seattle-based Very Very Spaceship as the development studio. We’ll enter soft launch in select countries soon, and global launch is planned for later this year.”