Keyword I wanna use here: closure. Not why didn't we get an outright full fledged Cybertron game by HMS, but just any form of closure to such a cliffhanger TFOC left. At the bare minimum for some franchise media that gets tragically cancelled before it finishes the narrative it wants to tell (Samurai Jack, Star Wars: The Clone Wars being the present examples I can think of right now) there's at least some closure. Maybe it's a comic, novel, or the best case scenario a short resurrection years later due to bad press. But the way I see this, is Hasbro/Activision just pretty much pulled a Valve Software in terms of total radio silence. There was no comic, no novel, or anything to pick up the thread. And just to address an elephant in the room, ROTDS was bad, but not Sonic 06 levels of bad-PR. At most it was an outdated practice movie tie in game even for the time. Devastation by Platinum Games came out a year later so console TF games were active for a while. But back to the main topic: Hasbro/Activision even in this timeframe really just said "fuck it." towards the Cybertron storyline. I dunno, I still lurk TF for here and there, and this just stumps me so I wanted to write this... probably for a good decade. Open to any reasons.
Well, the original intent was for both the Prime cartoon and Universe online game to be sequels to FOC. Even with the problems of the Aligned continuity not being aligned, I think Hasbro might have intentionally wanted to leave a story gap in between leaving Cybertron and arriving on Earth. Maybe they wanted to leave the timeframe open for more stories, either as a novel or as flashbacks in Prime. Not sure how in-depth the "Binder of Revelation" got in terms of individual character's fates and journeys. After the Aligned continuity failed, Hasbro pretty much just washed their hands of most of it. The only parts of the continuity that survived past 2014 were RID2015 and Rescue Bots, but I don't think either show was part of the initial plan. Technically, the story of the Cybertron games ends when the characters leave Cybertron.
The TFP novels Exiles and Retribution are a good pseudo-conclusion to the story of the Cybertron games, even if they're sequels to a book that's basically an alternate telling of how the war began and barely connects to War for Cybertron.
Well that's easy Prime was supposed to be a direct tie in to WFC, but they didn't listen and did their own thing. Then Hasbro made a huge push to make a movie tie in game to boost AoE which botched any true closure because they had to rush and half ass the WFC part to create a whole new AoE part which is why there was broken audio files and general unpolish in the game. Then some idiot some where was like, oh shit, G1 is also very popular, let's ALSO add a G1 storyline that legitimately meaned and panned out to nothing because some dumb ass execs were like, fuck it, let's mash three ENTIRELY separate games into one and make it a story of three Primes and didn't and failed epically. Then some other OTHER dumb ass was like fuck it, even if the story is bad, let's get rid of one of the fan favorite features and redeeming qualities of the game, multiplayer. Then the game came out and people hated it. And then, on top of all the other horse shit, they decided to make the Deadpool game, which glassed all of High Moon and then after which everyone was so salty from Activision and Hasbro that they glassed the whole aligned continuity because it was already botched beyond botched. Then Activision went on with Blizzard to make more terrible CoDs, overwatch, and went on to do a lot of sexual harassment stuff and completely moved on from Transformers and the rest is history. As you can tell, am I still very salty to this day of never getting a true Mass Effect trilogy ending game. But honestly, fuck Activision. Get someone else to do Transformers, idk why everyone glorifies them when they have been up there on the hated dev list like Unisoft for quite some time. Give the TF license to like ID or Fromsoft, they killed it with AC 6, so if we can get a modification of that, we are set. My head cannon is that the Ark going into the Portal was the start of G1 and left it at that so I don't have to consistently rerage on over a decade of hate of never knowing what could have been
I don't think it has anything to do with the Aligned continuity not panning out, atleast not entirely. Immediately after Fall of Cybertron, High Moon worked with Marvel to create a Deadpool game that had an insanely bloated budget and released to relatively poor sales and middle-of-the-road reviews, and that kinda just sealed High Moon's fate as a studio. They've been relegated to the CoD mines ever since. Any hope at a follow up to FoC died with High Moon's demotion.
Pretty much what's been described here. The War for Cybertron games weren't tied to the aligned continuity in their conceptual phase as initially they were basically like what TF:One is: a prequel not tied to any specific continuity, but by FoC they included some visual and lore elements so it could sorta be in the same continuity as Prime despite some inconsistencies. I'm sure High Moon WOULD Have made a third game if they got the chance but after what happened with their Deadpool game (which was great but sadly didn't do that well critically and financially) they never got the opportunity.
Dunno if I feel like my question is being answered here. I'm aware of the industry politics of why HMS technically didn't make a third game, it was because of the Deadpool fiasco. I'm also aware of the consequences that happened after the Aligned Continuity crashed and burned. Maybe I should draw in a better analogy that's within TF. Cartoon media like TFA even got some closure a year or two after it was cancelled. Maybe not answering every question post TFA-cancellation but some of the stuff was atleast, something significant. For better or worse, even RID 2015 gave TFP fans something if you wanted to follow a partial aftermath of what happened if you had some favorite characters from TFP. Maybe not the best example because TFP leaves a semi-open door for a sequel, but maybe it is because of how less popular it was compared to TFP. (Yes, I'm aware that TFP had ballooning budget issues. Used to get into discussions about that with users here years ago.) All I wanna know is why Hasbro sought out to ignore the Cybertron games like it's ironically their mother-effing Half-Life 3. I'm surprised it took me a while to realize but it's stunning that for a franchise that seems to consistently get end-production media in some form just treats their biggest open door to an aftermath story like the plague.
Hasbro likely didn't pursue a direct third game because they were more interested in the idea of the Aligned continuity, which is probably why they instead agreed to an original G1 concept (Devastation) and a non-canon crossover between WfC and the live action movies. By the time the Aligned continuity fizzled, Activision no longer had the license but still owned the rights to the games, and as they're notoriously stingy, convincing them to relicense the franchise in order to put out a sequel to a moderately successful pair of games was likely a nonstarter, given Activision was consistently focusing more and more of their attention on the highest rollers, like Call of Duty and Blizzard. (High Moon Studios ended up a Destiny and CoD support studio in 2014) So at this point, you're asking Hasbro to find a developer to be willing to license the franchise to make a sequel to a series of games that aren't even available anymore. It's a tough sell, especially when it's so much easier to just make an original game or one based on a different version of the franchise, at that point. The bigger question is why has Transformers not gotten ANY major games since Devastation. It's all been mobile games, with the occasional lower-budget project from Outright Games. Like, Reactivate is supposedly still floating around, but that's been in development hell for so long that it suggests "Just make a TF game" isn't the no-brainer easy money decision that some people think it is.
Whoops, misread that last post. (Saw Half-Life 3 mentioned and immediately assumed you were talking about a new game. Also someone didn't play Half-Life: Alyx ) Hasbro probably still considers TF: Prime to be the next part of that story, or at least did long enough that by the time they wouldn't, the games were no longer available so not a lot of motivation to follow-up after the fact. They could do it now, except Skybound has the comic license and doesn't seem keen on anything beyond its own interpretation of G1 and Hasbro can't even get a partner to make a decent cartoon about the Generations toyline, which is an active product they want to promote and not a pair of old videogames. Maybe we'll see things change if Microsoft reissues the games, but Hasbro's marketing isn't exactly firing on all cylinders these days.
Hasbro are doing an entire subline of figures from those games so hardly avoiding them like the plague. But your question has essentially been answered. The followup were those novels and the Prime cartoon. As far as hasbro was concerned, they were all one continuity, all one story. To the point they had high moon give cliffjumper his prime head. They had trypticon turn into the nemesis in the second game and put dialogue in saying it would basically comatose him forever (plot holes created as to why megatron was so confused when the nemesis woke itself up in prime notwithstanding). The bit where they land on earth and get involved in agent fowler are the missing bit between them but I guess hasbro just didnt care about filling those bits in.
I wish we could get a finale that is a sort of mash up of Prime, the novels, and the High Moon games. Dunno how it would work. But would definitely love a finale. I hate that FOC ended on a cliffhanger, I know there’s a myriad of things about the why, and the when, and all. But I wish that game had at least not ended with just the whole, “everybody crashes through the portal” ending so we weren’t left hanging.
