For those in the Venn diagram overlap of ‘liking Transformers’ and ‘enjoying competent mobile games’, TRANSFORMERS Forged to Fight was a fun fighting game with somewhat generous gacha mechanics. It employed a crazy cast of characters from basically every continuity – be it Beast Wars, the 80’s cartoon or even the Michael Bay films – and employed fighting mechanics that were fun, if simple.
Then, after a slow down in content, the game was announced to be sunsetting in January of this year (2023).
However, to the shock of all – the game has now seen a strange, sudden resurrection under the Netflix banner:
It’s immediately apparent that while it is the same game, it’s also not the same game. Firstly – anyone who partook in the title prior will not be seeing their previous progress carry over, which I can assume is tied into one of the biggest changes to the game: the removal of all in-app purchases. No more random pulls from paid-for crystals, now progression is based simply off playing the game and spending the currency you earn – levelling the playing field for any who wish to dip their metallic toe in the competitive modes of the game.
The other glaring change is that an entire subset of characters has vanished from the game – the cast from the Michael Bay films. Many have rightly assumed that this was a necessary evil on the part of Netflix to avoid paying some kind of licensing cost to Paramount, the distributor of the live action films. While this does thin out the roster somewhat, it does streamline the title into a continuity that is a little easier to track – and removes the awkward nature of having multiple Megatrons popping up.
Nobody really saw this coming, and for players of the game they were firmly believing that the last they would see of the game is the sunsetting screen that went live back in January:
Farewell Forged to Fight. You truly were a fantastic #Transformers mobile game and every fight was well worth the fun….Till next time
Rip pic.twitter.com/DjcS1XZmtG
— Sevy -Pablo Stan! (@_SevyP_) January 13, 2023
It is also worth noting that as the game is now under the Netflix banner, it is technically no longer a free to play title – requiring a Netflix account login to access the game.
It is a strange development, and given my casual relationship with the game (and my seldom used Netflix subscription) I find myself wondering what my attachment level may be with the game. In all truth, I may simply rekindle the previous relationship I had with it – that being 10 minute squirts of gameplay when I find myself bored and want to see Waspinator self-destruct as his ultimate attack.
Did you ever plat Forged to Fight? Is this a development that pleases you? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
Known throughout the interwebs simply as M0D3Rn, Ash is bad at video games. An old guard gamer who suffers from being generally opinionated, it comes as no surprise that he is both brutally loyal and yet, fiercely whimsical about all things electronic. On occasion will make a youtube video that actually gets views. Follow him on YouTube @Bad at Video Games
