High Moon Studios
High Moon Studios (formerly Sammy Studios) is a video game development studio based out of California that wielded an outsized influence over the direction of the Transformers brand in the 2010s. Namely, they were responsible for the flagship War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron games that formed the bedrock of the decade-long "Aligned continuity" project. A subsidiary of Activision, some of their most prominent work outside of the Transformers brand includes serving as a supporting developer for the long-running blockbuster [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Call of Duty|{{#if:||Call of Duty}}]] and [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Destiny (video game series)|{{#if:Destiny|Destiny|Destiny (video game series)}}]] franchises. Their most well-known homebrew title is likely their debut game, the cowboy-vampire-horror-shooter game [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Darkwatch|{{#if:||Darkwatch}}]].
Some of their key personnel include:
- Matt Tieger (game director)
- Dave Cravens (cinematic director)
- Mike Brown (principal artist)
Games
- Transformers: War for Cybertron (360/PS3/PC)
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon (360/PS3)
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (360/PS3)
High Moon Studios and continuity
High Moon Studios has, at times, made comments to the gaming press that have avoided giving a direct answer to the question of the continuity of War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron, or have appeared to contradict Hasbro's official position on the subject. Both games are part of Hasbro's Aligned continuity family (which is headed by the Transformers: Prime cartoon), while High Moon Studios have suggested to the press that the games are part of the original 1980s cartoon series, and that the studio considers "making authenticity to the G1 cartoon series as high as possible to be [their] biggest priority".
Being ignorant to Hasbro's statements on the subject and seemingly without any other easily available information to the contrary, this has led the press and much of the gaming public to conclude that the games indeed belong to the cartoon from their childhoods. Even some portions of the Transformers fandom have refused to believe that the games have anything to do with Transformers: Prime.
To High Moon's credit, while Fall of Cybertron features many, many references to the Generation 1 cartoon and the original animated movie, it also has more ties to the Aligned continuity (compared to War for Cybertron) and depicts a significant event from Aligned/Prime that has (so far) only occurred in this fictional universe.
Rik Alvarez stated High Moon Studios were on board with the Aligned continuity family despite conceiving War for Cybertron as a G1 prequel, and that Hasbro Studios were the ones resistant to tying into the games.<ref>Aligned Continuity panel at TF Con Charlotte notes</ref><ref>Rik Alvarez panel, slide show - See fan photos</ref><ref>Rik Alvarez panel, slide show on Beast Hunters - See fan photos</ref>
References
External links
- High Moon Studios official website
- [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}High Moon Studios|{{#if:High Moon Studios on Wikipedia|High Moon Studios on Wikipedia|High Moon Studios}}]]