MegaBots’ dream of a televised giant robot fighting league has been a bit slow going. No surprise, really. Building a mech takes time and money, and building enough to facilitate a league takes a lot more of both of those things. In the meantime, the Bay Area-based robotics company has created a web series documenting the progress of its suit and appeared at Disrupt, all while challenging the occasional country to a straight up ‘bot battle.
MegaBots challenged Suidobashi Heavy Industry to a battle way back in June 2015, and the Japanese company accepted roughly a week later. Since then, it’s been more than two years of anticipation and false starts, including a close call back in August, due to what the company called “logistical issues.”
The duel finally has a concrete date: October 17. That’s five days from now, which doesn’t give either side a lot of time to back out. We’ve been burnt before, so, you know… we’ll believe it when we see it. Lots can go wrong when attempting to get two giant, expensive robots to bash the living hell out of each other.
MegaBots’ Eagle Prime is a 16-foot tall bot, weighing in at 12 tons. Suidobashi’s Kuratas, meanwhile, is a relative welterweight, at 13 feet and 6.5 tons. The 20-ton real-life Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots will be streamed live on Twitch, starting at 7:00 PM PT on the 17th. The action will then be uploaded to the MegaBots YouTube and Facebook pages immediately after for posterity.