Transformers: Fall of Cybertron opens on a dying planet and ends with its people running for their lives. It is a rare licensed game that earns the weight of its own fiction.
The game launched on August 21, 2012, in North America and August 24, 2012, in Europe for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Mercenary Technology handled the Windows version. A second wave arrived in 2016: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports on August 8 in Australia and August 9 in North America, built by Fun Labs.
Trailer, via TransformersGame.
A Sequel That Knows What It Follows
Fall of Cybertron is a direct continuation of 2010’s Transformers: War for Cybertron. The Autobots and Decepticons are locked in civil war over their home world. The previous game left Cybertron unable to sustain life, and the Autobots want out. The Decepticons want submission or death, in that order.
High Moon wanted a darker tone than the original. It got one. The planet is rocked by quakes and violent electrical storms. Energon, the Transformers’ lifeblood, is scarce enough that wells become battlefields. The once Golden Age of Cybertron is over.
The campaign opens in the final days of the war. Optimus Prime leads the Autobots onto the Ark, the last transport off the planet. The Decepticon flagship Nemesis attacks. While Optimus fights Megatron on the Ark’s outer surface, Ratchet sends Bumblebee to assist. Megatron lines up a killing shot, and Bumblebee takes it for Optimus.
Then the game jumps back six days. That structure is the smartest thing in the script. You know how the escape ends before you play the six days that make it necessary.
Metroplex Changes the Scale
Six days earlier, the Decepticons attack the docked Ark. Optimus leads the defense, working alongside Perceptor, Ironhide and Warpath. In the middle of that fight, Optimus accidentally wakes Metroplex, a city-sized ancient Autobot Titan. Metroplex turns the tide and destroys two of the Decepticons’ Warp Cannons. The last cannon seemingly kills him, and he comes back online to crush Megatron to death.
The Metroplex sequence is the moment Fall of Cybertron stops being a sequel and becomes its own thing. Optimus does not just fight. He commands. The game gives you a Titan the size of a skyline and asks you to use him, and the scale holds because the camera keeps its distance and lets the character tower over everything.
Every playable character gets a distinct ability rather than a shared toolkit. Jazz fires a grappling hook to reach high or distant ground. The Combaticons combine into the Decepticon Bruticus, and the segments where you control Bruticus are built around its larger frame. Scale is maintained so the character towers over enemies.
Then there is Grimlock. The Autobot who becomes a robotic Tyrannosaurus carries only a sword and a shield. He cannot transform at will. He accumulates rage as he fights, and when the meter fills he transforms and does massive damage. It is the best character design in the game because it turns a limitation into a rhythm. You are not waiting for a cooldown. You are earning a reward.
A Shooter With a Halo Skeleton
Fall of Cybertron is a third-person shooter. Players control each Transformer in robot and vehicle form. The health system borrows from Halo: a regenerating shield plus health that only a health pack restores.
Weapon selection is wider than in War for Cybertron. New guns take significant upgrades, including one that lets a weapon fire up to 75 percent faster. You buy them at Teletran 1 kiosks scattered through the levels.
Stealth Force returns from High Moon’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It lets you fire while in vehicle mode, at the cost of speed. It is a small mechanic that changes how you move through a room. You trade mobility for offense, and the trade is usually worth it.
The online cooperative campaign from the first game is gone. In its place are levels built around each character’s specific abilities. That is a real loss for players who wanted to run the story with friends.
The Voice Cast Carries the Weight
Some of the 1984 series The Transformers cast came back. Peter Cullen returns as Optimus Prime. Gregg Berger returns as Grimlock. Other actors reprise their roles from War for Cybertron.
Cullen’s Optimus is the anchor. The part could be pure gravel and slogan, and Cullen keeps it a commander’s voice — tired, certain, aware that the planet is already lost. Berger’s Grimlock is the opposite register entirely, and the two never need to share a scene to justify the contrast.
An origins subplot for the Dinobots is told, reimagined from the Generation 1 continuity. Other subplots adapt stories for several characters. Not all of them land with the same force, but none of them feel like filler.
Where the Campaign Stumbles
The game is a prequel to Transformers: Prime, and it carries the obligations of that position. It has to end where another story begins. That constraint shows in the last act, where momentum matters more than resolution.
The removal of cooperative campaign play is the other cost. Fall of Cybertron is built around switching characters and abilities, and that structure practically begs for a second player. The game asks you to appreciate Jazz’s grappling hook and Grimlock’s rage meter on your own.
The 2016 ports are competent rather than definitive. Fun Labs built the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions. That is a service, not a remaster.
None of this sinks the game. It just marks the ceiling.
The Numbers Behind the Launch
- Release (original): August 21, 2012 (North America); August 24, 2012 (Europe)
- Release (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One): August 8, 2016 (Australia); August 9, 2016 (North America)
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
- Developer: High Moon Studios
- Windows version: Mercenary Technology
- PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions: Fun Labs
- Publisher: Activision
- Genre: Third-person shooter
- Modes: Single player, multiplayer, co-operative
- Score: 8.1/10
Release Schedule
| Date | Region | Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| August 21, 2012 | North America | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 |
| August 24, 2012 | Europe | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 |
| August 8, 2016 | Australia | PlayStation 4, Xbox One |
| August 9, 2016 | North America | PlayStation 4, Xbox One |
What the Score Means
Fall of Cybertron received generally favorable reviews from critics. That matches what the game does well and where it stops.
An 8.1 is not a verdict on ambition. It is a verdict on execution, and the execution here is unusually strong for a licensed tie-in. High Moon built a shooter with a Halo skeleton, dressed it in a story about extinction, and let the scale of Metroplex and the patience of Grimlock’s rage meter do the talking.
The reason to play it now is the same reason to play it then. It takes a toy line and treats the end of a world as a real thing. Bumblebee takes a shot for Optimus. A planet dies. The Autobots seek refuge in the Milky Way, because there is nowhere left to stand.
That is a better story than most shooters of its era attempted, and it is told without a single line of apology.
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