BattleBots is coming back, contrary to rumors of its demise

BattleBots World Championship 7 aired in early 2023, and since then we had no word on whether there would actually be a WC8. Between that, the Destruct-a-Thon live show in Vegas suddenly announcing a hiatus earlier this year, and the uncertain financial situation of Warner Bros. Discovery, there were a lot of concerns that BattleBots might be done for. But as of today, BattleBots appears to be alive and well.

https://twitter.com/BattleBots/status/1825633404660138488

BattleBots Destruct-a-Thon is re-opening in Vegas, and they're also going to be taping BattleBots FaceOffs, a new series that will be uploaded to the official BattleBots YouTube channel, later this year. The announcement also mentions that the FaceOffs will also serve as pre-qualifying matches for WC8, currently scheduled for filming in early 2025, seemingly confirming that WC8 is indeed happening. You can see the robots that will be competing in these FaceOffs (and order tickets to see the show in person if you happen to be planning a trip to Vegas) on the official website:

https://battlebots.com/tickets/

The only concern left is that they haven't confirmed where/how WC8 will air, and with the uncertainty around WBD these days, I don't blame them. Still, this is good news for all of the robot combat fans out there. We've already lived through BattleBots being cancelled once and Robot Wars being cancelled twice, and I'd rather not have to go through a fourth painful cancellation any time soon.

There was talks about a mini-championship later this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lac4xv2lbRM

Ah, I actually checked up on their site the other day, since it is that time of year and there's been silence, and they had nothing at the time!

While a lot of bots are present, others are missing. I assume not all teams are participating in this mini-series.

It would be stupid to kill it off right now just as pathfinding and other AI is making its way into bots.

Starks posted...

It would be stupid to kill it off right now just as pathfinding and other AI is making its way into bots.

David Zaslav: Hold my beer!

DuneMan posted...

While a lot of bots are present, others are missing. I assume not all teams are participating in this mini-series.

Based on the group listings, this FaceOff series looks to be only 28 bots split into 7 groups of 4. About half of them are veterans like MadCatter, Witch Doctor, and Tombstone, but the other half are bots that have never competed in a BattleBots World Championship before. Some of them have had on-air exhibition fights like TerrorTops, while some of them have had past Destruct-A-Thon live fight but have never fought on-air.

Starks posted...

It would be stupid to kill it off right now just as pathfinding and other AI is making its way into bots.

I don't think having AI drive these bots would be a good idea, both for entertainment purposes and for safety concerns. Maybe it could work in a separate competition with a smaller weight class, but not with these gigantic 250lb death machines.

Starks posted...

It would be stupid to kill it off right now just as pathfinding and other AI is making its way into bots.

That seems like against the spirit of the game. Like racing autonomous cars or something.

Chomp had an auto-homing hammer spike and it was completely fine despite the bot itself being shit.

Looking into the "newcomers" in those groups, I found some interesting info on some of them.

* Manta is the reigning and 2-time RoboGames heavyweight champion, and it defeated bots from multiple BattleBots teams along the way to those two titles. So it already has championship pedigree despite not stepping onto the biggest stage until now.
* Vertigo is a brand new flipper bot from Will Bales and Team Hypershock. Its first FaceOff fight will actually be its debut fight. It's also interesting that Hypershock itself will be in one of the other groups, so Will Bales and his team will be pulling double duty.
* Orbitron is a new bot with two vertical spinners, one on each side of the robot. It basically looks like a modernized version of Counter-Revolution, a bot from season 1 of the reboot that got absolutely obliterated by Tombstone and was never seen again.
* Speaking of Tombstone, Hellfire is captained by Rick Russ, who is a former member of Team Hardcore Robotics and was basically Ray Billings' right-hand man working on Tombstone for a long time.
* Traves T looks like one of the weirdest designs for a bot that I've ever seen. Like, think of how you first reacted when you first saw HUGE. It's that kind of weird. Whether the thing actually works and is good, I have no idea.
* Disarray looks like a ray, and its name is Disarray. Dis. A. Ray. This is a ray. It's a pun. No idea if the bot itself is any good, but its name made me laugh so I'm cheering for it to do well.

Every now and then, I get an idea for a BattleBots bot that seems either practical or stupid funny and I kinda wish I could enter.

The other day, I thought about making a thick steel box with a really heavy weight inside on some kind of springs and a really heavy flywheel so that it could roll around and even jump on its own power and crush enemies. Naturally, this is one of the stupid funny ideas.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

Every now and then, I get an idea for a BattleBots bot that seems either practical or stupid funny and I kinda wish I could enter.

The other day, I thought about making a thick steel box with a really heavy weight inside on some kind of springs and a really heavy flywheel so that it could roll around and even jump on its own power and crush enemies. Naturally, this is one of the stupid funny ideas.

TBH BattleBots but a flying drone league would be amazing and I think a bit more fun to watch.

oh nice

I was just thinking the other day that it was weird I hadn't heard anything about the next season yet.

Starks posted...

Chomp had an auto-homing hammer spike and it was completely fine despite the bot itself being shit.

yeah I think AI weapons like that could work but the bots should be piloted by a team member.

plus there's way too many variables for AI to handle I think

i've never really been a fan but damn i would totally love to see a live show one day, in vegas. that sounds fun as hell. i'll think about that.