EA has unveiled the first art preview for Command & Conquer Remastered, which it says is “approaching the conclusion of pre-production”. The asset seeks to offer greatly increased resolution while keeping the same look and feel of the original.
As one of the first buildings players see in game, the construction yard was a natural start for a pre-production reveal. It’s clearly very faithful, adding little details and cleaning up jagged edges, but keeping a very familiar footprint.
“It’s worth calling out that if there’s a conflict between the in-game asset, cinematic asset, or UI portrait, we’re always going to side with the in-game asset,” explained EA producer Jim Vessella. “That being said, if there are opportunities to pull in details from the cinematic footage to enhance an asset, we’ll do our best to incorporate those details. A good example here would be the blue pattern / texturing on the Con Yard door (Inspired by the classic Con Yard unpacking cinematic).”
Reactions to the image are extremely positive so far, but C&C Remastered has a way to go until it’s ready for the public. Vessella says the team delivered its first playable mission in March and is currently working on both multiplayer netcode and other art assets.
Though published by EA, Command & Conquer Remastered’s work is headed by Petroglyph Games, which contains many of the original developers from Westwood Studios. It’s also joined by Lemon Sky Studios, which helped out with StarCraft’s Remaster.
If the asset is anything to go by, C&C Remastered’s visuals could be a step above even the StarCraft Remaster. The final release will include not just the original Command and Conquer, but Red Alert and all expansions.
The game’s audio efforts will be headed by Frank Klepacki, who composed the soundtrack for the original. Last month, he asked for feedback from the community surrounding their favorite tracks, for which he has “something extra special” in mind.
Thankfully, despite EA’s branding, the game will contain no microtransactions. The company appears to be taking the effort very seriously after the negative reaction to C&C’s mobile game, Rivals.
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The remaster is in many ways a celebration of the upcoming 25th anniversary, which will be in September of 2020. It’s a sure bet that EA will aim for a release then, and this is another indication of significant progress.