On December 16th, 2009, a new Transformers video game was announced by Hasbro and developer High Moon Studios. With the then-recent release of the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen game, surely it could not have been another movie game. No, this one would come to impact the fandom, the franchise, and the way we see the Transformers very heavily. Transformers: War for Cybertron was set to be the first video game and indeed the first major piece of media in franchise history to focus entirely on the details of why the Transformers left Cybertron in the first place without simply being a flashback or special episode of any kind. However, it not only revolutionized the lore of the Transformers, but its gameplay was almost completely unprecedented with little influence to draw from in terms of mechanics. On June 22nd, 2010, Transformers War for Cybertron was released for Xbox 360, Play Station 3, and PC.
War for Cybertron started players off in the thick of the battle as the Decepticons, a furious Megatron demanding Brawl and Barricade ram their star cruiser into the Autobot’s space station in their quest for Dark Energon, leaving them without backup and fresh out of star cruisers to tunnel their way any further. Dark Energon, something the fandom had never seen before, was said to be uncontrollable and that “it dominates and destroys everything it touches.” But when has that ever stopped Megatron? After becoming the dominator and destroyer himself, now infused with the power of Dark Energon, Megatron set out to unlock the Omega Gate which served as the entrance to the core of Cybertron and ultimately succeeded in corrupting the planet’s core, but not after quite literally going through Zeta Prime and toppling the mighty Omega Supreme who stood as the guardian and true key to the core’s entrance.
Following what would be Megatron’s move that put the Autobots in check, a soldier named Optimus led a rescue mission with the medic Ratchet and the messenger who informed them of the grim news of Zeta’s demise, Bumblebee, to try and save the Autobot leader in hopes he may yet function. On their quest they discover a transmission that is most assuredly a trap…but when has that ever stopped Optimus? After venturing through the Decepticon prison Kaon, they find a weak but still functioning Zeta Prime being tortured by the prison’s warden, Soundwave. Unfortunately, the Autobots are too late and return to the high council with Zeta’s lifeless chassis, where Optimus begrudgingly takes on the mantle of Prime and leads the Autobots through the rest of their struggles. Now with the quest of saving Cybertron’s core set in their minds, the Autobots make the journey there, only to find themselves too late and now in need of an escape plan. Megatron of course has other ideas and orders the orbital station/giant space laser cannon known as Trypticon to fire on Optimus Prime. But after a wild and potentially disorienting venture through space with Jetfire, Silverbolt, and Air Raid, the mighty Trypticon transforms into the massive, T-Rex-like death machine we all know and love and plummets to the planet’s surface where the final boss battle of the Autobot campaign and the game itself comes to a close after five chapters for each faction’s “sub-campaign.”
As for the previously mentioned mechanics, War for Cybertron was revolutionary in that no matter who or where you were or what you turned into, as long as you weren’t imprisoned, in a cut scene, or in too small a space, you could always transform at will and change back at any time with the click of your analog stick. While you could travel faster in vehicle mode, they were not just for getting around. If one was adept enough, they could move around the battle field changing back and forth as needed while still firing weapons in both modes continuously. In addition to having an entirely different form, which had its own abilities that varied from class to class, each campaign level provided players with ammo, health, and overshield crates along with crates containing random weapons or grenade types (frag, healing, or stun) and players could pick up new ones at any time, though Prime and Megatron could only swap one weapon as they kept their Ion Blaster and Fusion Cannon respectively throughout the game (with one minor exception for Optimus). Each chapter also had three characters for players to choose from such as Megatron, Brawl, and Barricade for one level, Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp for another, or Megatron, Soundwave, and Breakdown for the remainder of the campaign; and on the Autobot side of things one could choose from Optimus, Ratchet, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Ironhide, Warpath, Jetfire, Silverbolt, or Air Raid depending on the specific chapter. This of course opened up the possibility for co-op campaign, one of the three online features the game held, as players could play online with friends and other players to progress through the story as a trio or duo as opposed to single player with two friendly AI helping you along. This mode featured competitive scoring for kills, revives, and other stats. The other co-op feature was Escalation, a horde mode that produced endless waves of enemies on maps specific to the mode itself where players could spend points gained from kills to either buy weapons, ammo, health, overshields, or even open new areas of the map until every area was unlocked. In this four player mode, players could choose from either any of the campaign, multiplayer, or DLC Autobots or any of the Decepticons depending on the map and try to last as long as they could with wave 25 being the achievement benchmark for more casual players.
The multiplayer is where mechanics and engineering really shine. In this mode, players got to create their own transformers in a sense by picking character models (aka chassis) based on characters from the game and equip them with abilities and weapons that were specific to the class and over time unlock new weapons, abilities, and second and third slots for each class as they leveled up via experience from matches. Finally, each class contained its own killstreak rewards which could turn the tide of any fight or match. The ultimate component to this customization however was the color sliders used for primary and secondary colors on each character and the colors were separated by faction as each slot allowed one Decepticon and one Autobot each due to the teams in any given match being Autobots vs. Decepticons. The classes available were Scouts who turned into cars, Leaders who turned into trucks, Soldiers who were the tanks, and Scientists who were the jets/fliers. Abilities ranged from a personal cloaking device, to an inspiring battlecry that buffed team damage,to a devastating blast damaging others in the immediate vicinity, to a spy ability that changed the player’s colors to the opposing faction’s until they were found out or attacked. Multiplayer also featured a number of game modes, some of which are rarely seen translated into other games. There was of course Team Deathmatch and Deathmatch, team-based and free-for-all modes that focused on kill counts, Capture The Flag, Countdown To Extinction which saw teams fighting over a bomb and trying to plant it in the enemy’s base to detonate before it could be defused, Power Struggle which served as the game’s King of the Hill equivalent where players fought to hold control over a single point longer than the enemy, Conquest which was the three-point version of Power Struggle, and Code of Power which was much like CTF, but teams took turns attacking and defending to try and get the highest score after two rounds.
War for Cybertron may not have been perfect, and indeed saw many of its flaws amended in the sequel, but with its entry into the franchise, we saw Cybertron and its inhabitants in an entirely new light. It gave us a new view of the Transformers’ home planet and of the Transformers themselves in their Cybertronian forms. The game was indeed heavily influenced by G1 aesthetics, but it brought some characters back to the surface either from G1 itself, such as Onslaught, Breakdown, Brawl, and Dead End, or from the Unicron Trilogy with Demolishor and Scattershot and breathed new life into those nostalgia-filled designs. We even saw Slipstream unlocked as a reward for completing the Decepticon campaign with Arcee being the Autobot counterpart, continuing the former’s presence in the franchise after her debut in Animated. Elements such as Dark Energon (adopted in Transformers Prime), Cybertron itself (most recently evidenced by the Bumblebee film), and even the title “War for Cybertron” (which we now see reflected in the current Generations line) are just a few major elements that have had a lasting impact on the franchise to this day as the game has shaped how we view non-Earth designs for our beloved sentient robots and set a new standard for Transformers games that only its sequel has managed to meet if not exceed.
Sadly, over the last few years we’ve seen the entire Activision catalog of Transformers games pulled from Steam, Xbox Live store and the PSN store, making it nigh impossible to obtain digital copies of War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, Dark of the Moon, Rise of the Dark Spark, and Devastation, and earlier this year we saw the online/multiplayer servers for all of them officially shut down, leaving players with only the single player campaigns to enjoy. But despite that, today we celebrate this paramount entry into the Transformers franchise and the memories some of us have of logging on after a long day at work or school to play with friends and wage a chaotic war across Cybertron, and encourage those who are newer members of the fandom to pick up a used copy if possible and experience the story for yourselves, because there simply is nothing that beats enjoying the game firsthand.
We’ve got a discussion going over on the boards, so if you’ve played or enjoyed from the sidelines, feel free to drop in and share your experiences with the game and show some love!
dkr7
WFC and FOC were the best thing to happen to transformers imo, reignited my love for the franchise and made up for the awful movies. You can’t be Optimus and Megatron commentating on the multiplayer game modes and the sheer fun of being able to transform in combat mixing things up.
Gee Won 1984
WFC is such a great game. It is how the live action movies should have been. I wish multiplayer still worked
WFC, FOC, and Devastation are my favorite TF games ever. Now if we could just get a good Transformers Mortal Kombat game and Transformers Battle Royal I would die happy.
Cliffjumper
I liked this more than foc.
BigBlueLuke
A group of us used to play it together and had the best time online. My brother’s girlfriend at the time had to request that he played with the headset on if we were playing “CONQUEST” because it was so obnoxious lol!
“WE ARE CAPTURING A, WE ARE LOSING B, WE ARE CAPTURING C”
Chopperface
Not bad.
samisham
Such an improvement, I'm glad FOC fixed it.
Sidenote: I never noticed that ship was giant seeker jet mode, I guess that's what happens when you colourize a black and white game.
Chopperface
Just started replaying the campaign and… it’s kinda dull tbh. The controls are fun, but like we said back in 2010, the visuals aren’t that great. It’s really desaturated and the same shades of metallic grey and all. There are a few moments of color and visual coolness but it’s completely 90/10 with the bland, generic color palette otherwise.
It’s also a shame I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by playing as one of the three characters. They all play the same except for their speed. The abilities feel like they could go to anyone. Megs has his fusion cannon and his drain ability became something I associate with him due to it carrying over to DOTM. But there’s much less banter than I remember, and the characters don’t really present themselves that well. Nobody really reacts to stuff beyond “let’s shoot our way outta here!” There are a few moments in between like Skywarp calling Thundercracker ugly. But man, it makes me wonder what people were talking about with the back and forth banter of this game everybody loves. I feel like I’ve barely gotten anything the first two chapters of the Decepticon campaign. Plot is just shoot stuff and move to the next room, no development for the cast.
It was truly saddening to click on online and get the “servers not available”. RIP. Not that we got much character interaction in Escalation either, but still. WFC had great multiplayer and Escalation with a mediocre campaign, whereas FOC had a great campaign with a lesser multiplayer and Escalation. It’s sad to lose the best part of WFC, but it’s all that’s left.
Diesel
I just started playing this again. Every year or so I play this game. It cannot be overstated, this game is AWESOME! This is hands-down the BEST Transformers game. I like War for Cybertron better than Fall of Cybertron (Not that I don't also love FoC, I just like WFC a little better). Everything about the physics of this game is perfect. The driving controls are perfect! Man, I LOVE this game. I really wish High Moon was still a company and was still making these kick ass games.
Starscream78
I miss it! It was the best thing to happen in my life at the time. WFC, FOC even that dark spark continuation of the WFC and FOC was good. I never played the bayformers side of it but once.
Bring those games back. Hell I'd even go back to Armada on my Ps2. WFC was the best though. It's what got me back into gaming.
Frosty Coffee
I'm late to the party but Happy Birthday WFC! This game is truly dear to my heart. I remember meeting so many awesome people online with this game. I had so much fun! While it all started with Revenge of the Fallen, War for Cybertron is core to where it all kicked off! So happy I was able to experience this multiplayer along side so many awesome people! I love this community
samisham
The virgin WFC Trilogy vs the chad WFC game.
Maximus Danz
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SHIELD Agent 47
I don't see much purpose in starting a new thread, so I will revive this one. Happy 11 years to High Moon Studios' War for Cybertron!
Beastwarsfan95
I haven't tried yet, I was hiding in a vent as Cliffjumper when one of those armored scanners did a ground-pound. I think I was too close to the pipes on the mouth of the vent and I got clipped out. I couldn't transform. Something similar happened once in WFC as Ironhide.
HuffR_WFCTX_91135
Oh that's interesting, are you able to replicate it?
Beastwarsfan95
Happy birthday WFC!
Oh, here's a glitch that just happened to me playing FoC:
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Cryptwire
Still waiting for the game that would incorporate combiners, titans & the best of WFC & FOC. While FOC was good, it felt different when they started to take out kill streak abilities, removed POKE, & the jets could no longer barrel roll/yaw.
Cryptwire
The game that led me to get a PS4 and got optimistic about the longevity of the franchise.
Septimus-Prime
I was known as SeptimusPrim3 on PSN. I had the best times ever in those days!
FeatherBat
Happy birthday to one of my all time favorite games, and favorite part of the franchise! Can't believe it's been TEN years since it's release. Still never get bored of playing the story mode of both WFC and FoC and probably never will. Absolutely love the dialogue and characters in these games, really wish more came from it! I'd totally be DOWN for a tv series written by the High Moon's writer team based off this game, honestly.
Sucks I never got to properly play multiplayer but I'm happy lots of people still talk and remember fondly of it
Can't wait to boot it up again on my new rig next week!!