The Aligned continuity was Hasbro's attempt in the early 2010s to give several stories a shared foundation: video games, cartoons, books and comics. The idea was simple — a fan could move from a game to a series and find the same universe.
What it includes
At its core is the cartoon Transformers: Prime (2010–2013). Alongside it are the games War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron, the novel Exodus about the start of the war, and later the series Robots in Disguise (2015), which continues the story after Prime.
Why it didn't fully work
Different teams had their own visions, so details often diverged. The official explanation was that the stories are 'aligned' rather than identical — hence the name. Fans still argue over what in this line is canon and what isn't.
Why it's valuable
Despite the contradictions, Aligned produced some of the franchise's best work: the dark, mature Prime and the Cybertron games that, for the first time, truly showed the Transformers' home planet before its fall.
