Transformers: War for Cybertron (games)
Transformers: War for Cybertron is a video game developed by High Moon Studios and published by Activision, set before the Transformers take their war to Earth. Hasbro intends it to act as a foundation for Transformers franchise storylines for years to come, and so they've been giving a lot of input and stressing character development.[1] There are both a Decepticon and an Autobot campaign with distinct, linear storylines; the Decepticon campaign occurs chronologically before the Autobot campaign, but fans can play through them in whichever order they prefer.[2]
The game itself will be an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter in which the player can choose his character from a small roster of either Autobots or Decepticons. The game will be released on July 22, 2010, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and PC.
Synopsis
The game is set during the early days of the Great War on Cybertron. Megatron is searching for a dangerous power source known as Dark Energon to fuel his conquest of the planet. Optimus Prime has come to prominence after joining the fight following an attack on Iacon, but he is not yet leader of the Autobots. Starscream joins the Decepticons as second-in-command, but does not consider either Optimus or Megatron to have the planet's best interests at heart. (We will apparently learn why Starscream is such a whopping traitor and why Megatron doesn't just kill him)
Characters
According to Game Informer magazine, the following characters are playable:
Autobots
Decepticons
Promotional graphics also show designs for Ironhide and Soundwave, who may also be playable. The Decepticon campaign includes a boss battle with Omega Supreme and the Autobot campaign includes defending Iacon. Players should expect references to Cybertron locations taken from all previous Transformer stories, "things which may have only been referenced once, in one comic way back when, could be used and expanded upon."[1]
...They're totally reading the Wiki, aren't they? Hello, designers!
Features
- Campaigns will be co-op both online and off for the first time in a Transformers game.
- All playable characters have at least one special ability, such as absorbing health from enemies or marking targets.
- The game will run on the Unreal engine.
- High Moon is prepared to "support the game after release," meaning either patches or downloadable content.
Production
As an early marketing campaign, the game's website included the feature "Operation Transmission Recovery": using transmission and coordinate dials, you could pick up "transmissions" from Cybertron (or "video clips" to you and me).
The art and design team did intense research (i.e. watched the original cartoon, looked at comics, and watched "typical sci-fi cool stuff" like Blade Runner) to work out the aesthetic of Cybertron; lead artist Ivan Power remarked that the original cartoon was the main inspiration, and that Cybertron wasn't shown there so they had to rewatch the same few clips "over and over". While many of the city designs are elaborate and shiny, Decepticon Kaon was deliberately designed to be sharp-edged, rusting, and slapped together to show the Decepticons weren't interested in building a functioning society. [3]
