It totally would have been set on Earth. It would have been the Aligned version of First Contact between Transformers and humans, something that Hasbro has gone out of their way to never reveal to us. It's obvious that they were saving it for this game that could have been.

It would have had many of the expected things from WFC and FOC: Third person shooter, same basic controls, same difficulty settings. It would have been at least 10 levels long, with a 50/50 split between focusing on the Autobots and Decepticons. It would have had the tight level design of FOC, but it would have brought back the character selection and co-op campaign from WFC.

Multiplayer would have had even better character customization than FOC (gender options, better colors, proper vehicle mode selection), each level would have been a different environment from Earth (a jungle level, a desert level, a city level, a polar level, etc.), and the gametypes would have been the same (deathmatch, team deathmatch, ctf, etc.).

Escalation would have been given two modes: a proper multiplayer mode with four people that would last, oh, 20 rounds, and a custom mode that players could edit to their liking.

The title of the game itself would have been something along the lines of War For Earth or Exiles From Cybertron. And the toyline would have been bitchin'.

But what am I saying? We would never play that game, nope, we wouldn't pay money for that. There would be no hype or story potential or whatever. What a shitty idea, right? Let's settle for fucking Rise of the Dark Spark instead.

Anyways, that's just my wishful thinking for what could have been. What would you guys have liked to see? Cast choices? Plot twists?

 

I imagined that it would take elements from both The Covenant of Primus and the Transformers: Retribution novel (along with the Prime animated series, since this is set in the Aligned continuity. Or at least at the time. It has always been an on-going argument amongst fans, Aligned is kind of all over the place...)

Anyways, after the Autobots and Decepticons left Cybertron, they had several encounters before they arrived on Earth. First Junkion, the Star Seekers, Aquatron, Velocitron, etc. The possibilities are endless (and it doesn't even need to focus on the core roster, lots of things were happening on Cybertron during these events as well...). It would make for a not only broad but awesome plot. It's a lot to get into so I'll just reserve myself. But then again, they could always ignore the source material and roll with another game centered on Earth altogether...

If this doesn't come into fruition, I'd much prefer a game with a completely original story (which could maybe give birth to a new continuity). Just my thoughts!  

 

I'd definitely prefer if they did something like in the books where they go to other planets first, not Earth. I would love to see some of the other planets that TFs inhabit done in the Cybertron series style. Feeling similar to Bee in this case here. Already got plenty of TF games on Earth as it is.

 

I think the setting being the cast's first landing on Earth is a great idea. However, I came up with my own treatment for a third High Moon game without Earth. Instead, it takes place after the Prime era. It's the equivalent of Predacons Rising, where with a squint test, the events of Prime still happened, or an approximation of them did. But I dunno, Prime happened, and that story has been told. So I would fully diverge from it and just bring the story back to Cybertron for a big finale regarding its resurrection.

I called it "Transformers: Rise of Cybertron." Remember the star map scene? It was my favorite moment in the game and one of my favorite TF moments ever. It was incredible to take a breather from the hell on cybertron and look out into the cosmos with legit hope and wonder, seeing all those bright worlds out there, and even the dark ones. And they elaborate on this in the audio logs, the characters grieving the death of their home and culture. If someone else had the map and looked up Cybertron, they'd just see a dead husk like those dark purple worlds in the Star map.

Rise of Cybertron would be about the Cybertronians, Autobot and Decepticon alike, striving to return Cybertron to its former glory. Make it a beacon of hope for people in the cosmos again. And fighting villains who have no interest in this, who are only in it for themselves.

I wrote a caption for TF Wiki on the image of Unicron fighting Optimus in Predacons Rising: "chaos and creation clash once again", describing the central conflict of the film and really the franchise when it comes down to it, Primus vs Unicron. Rise of Cybertron also depicts creation (people interested in restoring Cybertron) clashing with chaos (those who don't care).

I'd love to have other characters we haven't seen in High Moon before in there, like Overlord, Blackout, Straxus, the Beast Warriors, the BM Vehicons, Lockdown, etc.

The other main thing I have in mind with this is a visual - one of the Bruticus level in ROTDS. I dunno, I liked how Bruticus looked dark blue-green and bathed in moonlight. That's a visual that has stuck with me and I would keep as the overall aesthetic of the game. I don't mean every map and locale is that shade and color, but I dunno. It would definitely inspire the cover art.