Only a few episodes remain in the second season of Transformers: Prime and Hasbro is wasting no time in announcing their third season: Beast Hunters! In the new season Shockwave unleashes ancient Cybertronian monsters on the Autobots lead by the terrifying Predacon, Predaking. Interesting choice in names, Beast Hunters is the original working title of what would become Transformers: Beast Machines. Of course you can't have a new season without new figures and Hasbro is bringing them in spades! While what was shown at NYCC is more or less a sample of what's to come there are some really interesting new figures on the way.

Let's just get the biggest one right out of the way. Predaking, a massive dragon, will be released in both Voyager scale and Cyberverse Commander scale next year. The Voyager version is pretty big with a nice wing span and the ability to change into a three headed dragon with launching fire missiles. Even though Hasbro hasn't been very open about it the figure does have a bot mode that they've only shown momentarily at their NYCC Transformes panel.

New Deluxe releases of Bumblebee and Wheeljack probably scream Monster Hunter the most with their heavily horned armor and primitive weapons. A Cyberverse Commander class Bulkhead has also been shown in armor making him appear like a viking version of G1 Roadbuster. Also in the Cyberverse line is Twinstrike, every bit the spitting image of G1 Decepticon Terrorcon Sinnertwin. I'll be more than happy to take all the G1 one homages they want to give me.

It's not just the Transforrmers: Prime line that's out hunting monsters. Transformers Kre-O is also taking up a monster hunting theme featuring a new Bumblebee set that features him in the form of a jeep with a net launcher and big dragon baddie Ripclaw! Smaller sets featuring Windcharger and Trailcutter (Trailbreaker) taking on smaller monsters is also on the way.

Shifting gears Hasbro has also announced their Platinum Series line to commemorate the Year of the Snake. The series includes repaints of Transformers: Energon Optimus Prime and Omega Supreme. Omega will also feature a new head and right hand with a G1 style red and gold color scheme. Optimus has a slightly more G1 color scheme in his smaller mode, but features no remolding. I don't believe details have been announced, but this 2012 Year of the Dragon edition was exclusive to the Asian market and Amazon.com so it might be a safe bet for the same to be true for 2013.

There was a lot more shown than what you see here so go over to a Transformers fan site (like TFW2005, Seibertron, or TFormers) and be sure to check out their coverage. Strangely they didn't make much mention of the Transformers: Generations line despite promising to make that the premier line of 2013. Guess they need to hold some stuff for Toy Fair in around four months.

[images via TFW2005]